# Pounds of Meat after processing



## kuntrygirl (Jan 30, 2011)

I was curious to know how much did your sheep weigh after being processed?  How many lbs of meat did you have to put in your freezer?  And how long did the meat last?


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## The Old Ram-Australia (Jan 30, 2011)

G'day KG,  As a general rule it's about 45/50% of live-weight,assuming the sheep is about 3 score(not skinny and not overfat)and not carrying 2 years wool,hope that is of value ...........T.O.R.


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## boothcreek (Feb 1, 2011)

From hanging weight(skinned, head off, feet off) to cut and wrap you loose about 50% depending how much fat had to be trimmed(the closer to the winter the more fat they have on them = more loss at cutting time) and if you wanted bone-in or boneless cuts.
At the butchershop I worked at a 55lb lamb usually resulted in about 25lb box of meat, sometimes a bit more if the wanted their shanks whole(bone in) and bone in leg roasts.


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## goodhors (Feb 1, 2011)

We do market lambs for Fair thru 4-H.  In most cases the kids have meat sheep breeds for their project lambs.  Lambs mean under one year old, with NO adult teeth.  Once past the year old birthday, they are SHEEP, NOT LAMB in meat.

From our personal experience, the meat taste changes as well, after the animal gets adult teeth and gains age.

That said, our goal is for weight of 130-140 pounds on the hoof, at the Fair to show.  That is the weight looked for in commercial marketed lambs.

That size lamb will return about 70+ pounds from the processor.  As mentioned, leaving bones in will add weight, removing bones gives a lighter meat return.  Not sure what that would leave you as a hanging weight, since there would still be a lot to remove as lamb is processed.

For our personal freezer use, I want a pretty heavy lamb to go for processing.  We are grazing them, some grain daily but not much.  Adding the costs, you pay a set amount for animal being killed and hung, then so much a pound for processing into packages.  You get no low rate for small weight lambs.  Tiny cuts of roast meat, lamb chops that are only silver dollar sized,  just mean that meat was really expensive to process with very little return in quantity.

Our lambs are usually Hampshire or Hamp and Suffolk crosses, very sizable lambs.  I wait until they get large, often they are 9months old, before processing.  The last one was really big, couldn't get a processing date until very late in Oct.  He went over 200 pounds!!  I was shocked at the weight, but he sure did return a lot of meat!!  It all tastes pretty good, with minimal fat with him out grazing.  Seems to be a good combination, meat is not greasy or dry.

Doing a 55 pound lamb for me, would be money wasted in processing expenses, driving up the cost of meat.

So unless you do your own butchering and processing, sheep that have tiny lambs, not much weight even at 10 months, will be costing you more to have processed, with that set butcher price per head. 

Sorry, anything over a year old is pretty nasty tasting to our family.  Mutton of older sheep does NOT taste like lamb.  I would not consider eating any sheep 2 years old.   Not flavorful to our family who were not raised eating sheep meat.  We think it tastes like chewing candles!  I know many folks like mutton, but we don't care for it.  We do love the young, true lamb meat though!  Mutton is often what is sold in grocery stores, not the lamb meat it is advertised as being.  Part of why so many folks think "lamb" tastes bad!  Even folks who think they don't like lamb, like ours when we serve it!!  Difference of ages in the animal when butchered, really does affect the flavor of meat.


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