How to skin a Lamb _ The Bearded Butchers

Hey folks , Scott Perkins here from the beard of butchers .

On today's video , we're going to be showing you how to skin a lamb .

Now , this practice can be used not only for lamb , but we can also use it on goat deer pretty much any smaller animal .

I'm going to be using the skinning cradle , which just happens to be made for this purpose .

You can certainly fashion something similar yourself .

If you're going to be doing this a number of times , I'm going to be open the legs of the lamb .

Seth will take over from there and you might be surprised at how little knife work is needed as Seth actually gets into this lamb .

So today we're going to be thinking about two things .

Obviously , number one is the integrity of the meat .

We want to keep the meat wholesome and clean .

In this case .

Also , the hide could be used for leather .

So we'll just get started first cut I make right across the Hawk right here .

You'll notice a lot of times I'll just , I'll use my knife and I'll clean the wool off of my knife because I don't want that .

Now , the heel of my knife , I like to keep it close to the leg .

So that way , the point of my knife is not digging into the meat .

And then I'm also pulling back on this leg just to keep that pressure so that I can follow my cut down through the leg right here .

So I'll just take it , I'll make an incision right , right along in the back here .

And when I come around the other side , I'll pick that up .

And what I like to do here is I actually like to pinch the leg .

Um using my Victorinox six inch bony knife , I pinch the leg between my knees and then I can grab it with one hand , reach over with this hand and I can just expose that , that Kelly send in , make a decision there for a gamble .

If you make a cut right across the back of the hack right here and then you apply some light pressure , you're gonna pop right through that joint .

That point , that side's done .

Repeat the process for this side .

Cross the Hawk , make that decision .

Remember ?

Keep that nice , the heel of that knife low .

So that way you're not digging into that leg of lamb , keep that wool and contamination off your knife .

And then I'm pulling away with a high with my non knife hand , make that cut right there across that achilles .

Again , we're gonna score this joint right here and then we can just apply some light pressure snap through there right at this point .

This thing is ready for the gamble .

Seth is going to put it on the hoist again .

If you don't have an electric hoist , you got to limb over a tree , you can pull this up and he's going to show you how he takes this from where I've stopped and he's going to take this thing all the way through till this hide is completely removed .

So , stay tuned .

How do folks Seth Perkins here ?

Like Scott said , we're white feather meats , we're butcher and lamb .

I'm going to show you how we skin it .

We're actually going to do it two different ways .

One method is going to be pulling it down by hand .

The second method is going to be using our hoist .

So if you don't have a hoist and you want to skin a lamb , no problem , we'll show you how to do it just using your hands and a knife .

Also , we have what's called a gamble .

Super handy .

You almost have to have something like this .

Not necessarily this particular gamble .

These or ones similar to this are available online .

We'll throw a link in our description showing you guys where to get one great investment .

Get a gamble .

It's going to change your life when it comes to actually hanging this animal up in the air for the skinning process .

So let's just go ahead and get started .

You can see when Scott broke his legs off , he left this tendon intact .

That's very important .

So now we simply want to just put our gamble through those hawks .

We're going to lower our hoist .

And if you don't have an electric hoist , not a problem , you can use a rope , string it over a tree branch , whatever it works to get that animal elevated off the ground is really the most important part .

So you want to get it about shoulder height .

And from here , we're just going to start skinning today , going to be using Victor six inch semi stiff .

Obviously , like we've mentioned before , this one has been honed down because of excess use makes it nice because you can use pinpoint accuracy around all these different areas .

So let's just go ahead and get started using your fingers on your left hand or your right , depending if you're right handed or left handed , pulling this hide back , keeping that wool off of the meat .

We want to just separate the seam on this leg .

So we're going to start on one side , go all the way across .

We flip over and do the same thing on this side using just the tip of your knife .

Being careful not to put big gouges in the meat located right here is the leg of lamb .

So you certainly wouldn't want big hack marks in there slowly working your way around this hawk .

And you can see that I'm using my left hand to pull and apply some pressure here as we go .

And I'm gonna show you one really important step while you're skinning .

Is that right here ?

Is this membrane that we talk a lot about that's located right between the meat and the hide .

Do you want to keep this membrane on the carcass and not on the hide ?

And I'll show you why working our way down continuing to separate that membrane from the hide .

The first initial starting process is the most important part .

Once you get that started , you can take your hand and apply some pressure on this hide and start pulling it down .

So we'll get to this point , we'll cut through the bum working our way all the way around .

It's easier once you get this started and this hide starts to fall over on its own .

That way you don't have to worry about it actually flipping over against the carcass as you're skinning .

So we get to this point , you can use your knee to kind of stable the animal here .

So it doesn't swing around on you and you want this is where you want to separate that rose meat that we talk a lot about from the hide .

So you can see that rose meat right there .

You wanna leave that on the animal not on the hide .

So go ahead and start that side , switch over here and do the same thing on this side .

You can see I'm just using my knife making these nice long strokes getting that started .

So once you get down here and you have the rose meat started in this membrane at this point , I'm just gonna go ahead and wash my hands and I'll be back .

So I took a break , went over and washed my hands .

The reason why I wanted to do that is you want to keep the hand that you're using to do this , pushing , you want to keep it super clean because that's the hand that's going to be against the carcass .

So you can see , I'm just going to start using my hand , my fingers a little bit and just start peeling this hide off .

It's pretty amazing that at this point , you know , I'm going to use my knife very little .

Maybe if I get to a point here where I need to help it along , just grab your knife , give it a little assistance .

Making sure that that rose meat stays on the carcass is just going to be a whole lot easier to peel this hide off here the entire way down through this carcass .

Once you get this all started , that's you're ready just to rock and roll .

So at this point , pretty much got that membrane that rose meat separated from the hide using downward pressure like that even just continue to push this hide down .

At this point , I'm gonna go ahead and raise my voice using my knife very , very little at this point .

Keeping that carcass nice and clean bye .

Keeping that hide pulled away , use your body weight to help you assist in this .

Take this hand , put it under the hide has continued to push down .

Get these shanks opened up , couldn't raise my hoist .

Sometimes on the neck , it can be a little bit harder to pull .

So you may need the , get your knife out and assist just a little there .

You have it pretty much skin that lamb from the legs down without much use of the knife .

So that's how you skin it without a hoist .

Next one , we're going to show you how to use the hoist .

All right guys , round two .

So you saw us skin the lamb by hand using a knife and then a lot of our fist pushing the hide down .

Now we're going to pull this hide by using our hoist .

We're gonna go ahead and get started again .

This process is pretty much the same .

We want to get this hide opened up around the backs of these legs being careful not to cut into the leg of lamb just like you saw us do on the last one .

So we're gonna go ahead and just get this opened up .

We want to show you both ways of doing this .

So if you do not have a hoist at home , you do not have to feel intimidated .

You can still butcher that lamb and get it skinned by hand without the use of the equipment .

So we're going to go ahead and keep opening this up , cutting down through the , the belly , exposing this rose meat on the left and right side .

Remember this is the most important parts .

If you don't get this down pat , you are going to make a mess out of skinning this lamb .

So if you get this started , this hides going to peel off just like you're removing a glove .

So this part is , is key find that rose meat work that knife blade right along that rose meat , making those nice long cuts all the way up .

At this point .

We can just start pulling a little bit .

I'm gonna go ahead and wash the knife .

Thank you .

At this point , we can start peeling this hide off .

You can see right here maybe where it starts to pull that membrane off the carcass .

So that's where you get your knife out .

Help it just a little bit , then go back to using your hand .

Same here .

You can see , get a visual for it when you know that things are starting to go south , just get your knife out and help it a little bit .

Pretty much any animal that you're skinning this way .

You know whether it's a deer or an elk or even the small animals like raccoons and muskrats and they're pretty much all the same .

Your hide buyer is gonna love you .

If he gets a hide and all that isn't left on the hide , it's a lot less flushing that you have to do .

All right .

So now at this point , we have that membrane where that rose meat started on the carcass .

We're going to go ahead and use our hoist and we're going to pull this off like a glove .

You notice that we left the ends of the legs on this hide and we left those on for a reason .

That way you take a chain and you go around that hide and that helps hold that chain onto that hide as you're pulling .

So you go ahead and use one hand , hold those legs to make sure this hide stays away from the carcass as you're pulling .

So just start pulling that hide down .

Use your knife where needed , just pulling it off like a glove .

You can see that car is all nice and clean .

There's no hair on it .

There's no wool , no contamination or anything like that .

So we showed you two different ways to skin a lamb one by hand , one using a hoist .

If you use these methods , I think you'll thank us later .

Super easy .

Raise a lamb on your homestead .

Don't be intimidated by the butchering process .

Also , if you want to see how to cut a lamb , we're going to throw a link in the description in this video because we have a lamb processing video that you can watch .

So with the harvest portion , the skinning along with the processing , you've got a lamb down pat .

We're the bearded butchers , white feather meats .

Creston , Ohio .

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