Do Stalkers Need Butchers?

Johno100

Well-Known Member
You can see there's a pretty hot debate on halal slaughter , got me thinking , do stalkers need a butcher / super market for meat ?, Im sure most of us here hunt in an ethical manner , if you also have access to boar and bird shooting you can have a varied meat diet and still hold your head high.

I`m not currently able to do this myself but would like to in the near future, could you do it and be happy with your diet?
 
Happy to do it? Absolutely! Able to... no.

I would happily replace any bought beef or lamb with venison equivalents and I'm sure wild boar would be a cracking replacement for pork. Chicken would be more tricky to replace.

Opportunity, time and money (lack of, in all 3 cases) mean that's not possible for me though. But, if/when I get another deer it'll be much more appreciated (and better value) than the same quantity of supermarket meat.

If you're situation allows though then it would be a no brainer I'd have thought. I envy the setup Muir describes with all his meat requirements met by his own hand. I suspect he's not spending much time at the meat counter in the local (is there one?!) supermarket.
 
You can see there's a pretty hot debate on halal slaughter , got me thinking , do stalkers need a butcher / super market for meat ?, Im sure most of us here hunt in an ethical manner , if you also have access to boar and bird shooting you can have a varied meat diet and still hold your head high.

I`m not currently able to do this myself but would like to in the near future, could you do it and be happy with your diet?

As above, I would love to be able to do this, but I simply don't have the opportunity to be able to - we (wife and dogs) eat a lot of rabbit and the freezer is stocked with venison, hare, rabbit, pheasant, pigeon, squireel, snipe and woodcock but it won't last until the season starts again and I don't have the opportunity to stalk often enough to get enough venison - I am doubling my efforts this year to find some local stalking of my own, probably only munties but then that would mean a lot less meat from the butchers.

Chicken is easily replaced with rabbit loin - most people wouldnt know it was rabbit if you told them it was chicken as I often do.
 
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I think that in addition to the fact that most of us simply don't have access to enough quarry, there's the fact that hunting in all its' forms is an uncertain pursuit. I suppose that why we refer to "hunter-gatherers", rarely just to "hunters". We've all been through long periods of blanks for one reason or another, where you just can't connect with a deer, duck, rabbit or fish. You're using up a lot on energy on these fruitless (or perhaps "meatless") attempts. If you actually depended on them, the chances are it wouldn't work out. Essentially, it's probably not reliable enough.

I'd be happy to give it a go though, if someone will give me an opportunity!
 
Been a long time since I bought anything other than chicken and bacon in a shop.


+1 I must admit if it was not for the missus I would not need to buy much. She will not eat what I shoot but I stand by her decision as she does not eat a lot of meat.
 
we eat as much as possible from my own shooting but i need piggy and lamb we do eat wild boar but for those that have not tried it it isn't the same as pork, it is very nice indeed but i do like crackling and the wife can't go without lamb chops, venison chops are again very nice but not the same, atb wayne
 
we eat as much as possible from my own shooting but i need piggy and lamb we do eat wild boar but for those that have not tried it it isn't the same as pork, it is very nice indeed but i do like crackling and the wife can't go without lamb chops, venison chops are again very nice but not the same, atb wayne

We do the same, She's a keen organic vegetable grower and I do the protein. We get pheasant from one of the shoots we beat on and I make around 40/50 bales of hay a year which we swap with farmer friends for some beef and half a lamb. Mainly venison but rabbit and boar when I get lucky.

Bacon, ham, speck and sausages (salami or pork and beef) are the occasional buy-ins

Alan
 
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Happy not to buy super market meat and could easily do it .we have our own farm lamb and I could easily do without pork and get more than enough game and venison to keep me well stocked up .and will probably make more of an effort to cast a fly this year too for trout .off out for a rabbit tonight if its not too foggy !
Norma
 
We've all been through long periods of blanks for one reason or another, where you just can't connect with a deer, duck, rabbit or fish.

I've never been out and not shot a rabbit. Ever. (some nights maybe a dozen on foot, one weekend 400 in the car after grass cut).
 
We almost never buy red meat and eat venison 2 to 3 times per week. We do buy chicken and bacon as well as sea fish. I dont like some game enough to eat nothing else and I dont want venison 5 nights a week!!!
 
Last year I went from Oct to the following July without buying meat.
My freezer is full and I eat wild meat almost all the time when I can.

Had a nice Venison pirri pirri wrap at lunchtime today
 
90-99% of what we eat is either shot or caught by me. If I make sausages then I get pork from the butchers.

I have a mincer, a good Vac packer, Two decent boning knives, a bone saw and a chest freezer and that's about all I need to process anything that walks, flies or swims.

We have it so infrequently my missus thinks of chicken as a treat!!
 
I managed to go over four years without buying meat, and that while I was living in the city of Cambridge. I was fortunate to have numerous farmer contacts who allowed me to shoot their land, I bartered/swapped some of my game for e.g. lambs, pig and chickens, and I spent 6 months/year in south Africa with permission to shoot on a farm there. Indeed in South Africa, a team of around 15-20 of us bought no meat for that period, having a monthly hunt (springbok, wildebeest, gemsbok) to fill the chiller for a few weeks.

Ironically, since moving to Devon, where I have even better access to stalking, as well as wild trout and seafish, I've reverted to buying some meat, especially bacon and chickens, because I've lost the time (hello wife and children!!) to process the meat. We still eat 70-80% game.

Butchers are mainly a source of sausage skins.....
 
I managed to go over four years without buying meat, and that while I was living in the city of Cambridge. I was fortunate to have numerous farmer contacts who allowed me to shoot their land, I bartered/swapped some of my game for e.g. lambs, pig and chickens, and I spent 6 months/year in south Africa with permission to shoot on a farm there. Indeed in South Africa, a team of around 15-20 of us bought no meat for that period, having a monthly hunt (springbok, wildebeest, gemsbok) to fill the chiller for a few weeks.

Ironically, since moving to Devon, where I have even better access to stalking, as well as wild trout and seafish, I've reverted to buying some meat, especially bacon and chickens, because I've lost the time (hello wife and children!!) to process the meat. We still eat 70-80% game.

Butchers are mainly a source of sausage skins.....

don't the butchers object to you making sausages from their skins?

I used to swap rabbits / pigeons for cheese or bacon or sausages...must try doing that again this year.
 
me too lately!

even took a chap out the other night to introduce him to "rabbitting"
didn't see a thing!!

Sounds like a pretty accurate introduction to rabbiting in Edinburgh. I nearly ended up 'nedding' the other night, but that's a whole different issue...
 
don't the butchers object to you making sausages from their skins?

I think it very much depends on the butcher. I shot a roe doe a couple of weeks ago and went to our local butcher for some pork belly to mix in. When he asked what the pork belly was for he gave me a load of their sausage skins free gratis.

willie_gunn
 
I think it very much depends on the butcher. I shot a roe doe a couple of weeks ago and went to our local butcher for some pork belly to mix in. When he asked what the pork belly was for he gave me a load of their sausage skins free gratis.

willie_gunn

I thought Oscars dad was being amusing….their skins?
 
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