Feral Goat

[aftriathlete]

Didn't think mountain goat forum was appropriate, and I don't see anything about feral goats on the forum other than using them as pack animals. Searching "goat" brings up a million hits for antelope, mountain goats, etc. I'm sure goat isn't high on most lists for favorite game meat, but it's readily available here and I'll take advantage (will have to convince kids it's beef or chicken though.)

Anyone hunt/consume feral goat before and can share tips or knowledge? My first trip out a couple weeks ago here in HI ended with ethical disappointment, a dead goat in dangerous terrain that I couldn't recover. I'm going to attempt to get one in my pack this weekend -- anything to know or avoid with animal selection, meat safety, butchering, cooking?

Basic google searches turned up mostly Australian forums, and from what I've gathered there: it seems like young goats are easiest to cook, but older goats are fine as well, just plan on cooking them longer/lower/slower; there's concern about a disease called Q Fever that can be avoided by not gutting the animal and just taking the quarters and backstraps; doesn't seem like there are any glands to avoid; cooking generally seems to do well in stewed/slow-cooked/saucy preparations. How about ground or sausage?

 

[Wilderlife]

I've eaten more than I care to think about. Lots of Australians eat them, although there might be a little less of it happening now because there is a big market around trapping them or rounding them up live and selling them to overseas markets.

Feral goats don't necessarily have one rut like most deer species do, so it's common to find them rutting at many different times through the year. This is compounded (obviously) by them reproducing young at all times of the year so obviously nannies all come into season at various times based on their age. For this reason, many billy goats are constantly smelling rutty. They urinate on themselves all the time, and it smells a lot worse than deer species I've smelled down there way (I've never smelled elk or whitetail or mule deer, etc).

The meat of billy goats does have a bit of a smell about it but it eats OK. It can just be tough, the same as any other animal that might be getting on in age. The biggest mistake I see people make with goats is they are careless when they are field dressing and handling the meat. Try and grab a piece of skin and hang onto it while you're skinning without adjusting your grip, and skin far enough to where that skin lays over by itself and doesn't fall back onto the meat. Then, be careful how you're grabbing the meat.

The younger ones are delicious, but any young animal is going to be delicious (within reason). Despite looking reasonably big, goats carry a lot of their weight/condition in their guts and they look bigger than they are because of how long their hair can be. Despite having dressed out hundreds of goats, I'm still frequently surprised at how small their back legs are ones you skin them and take them off the carcass.

Curry is a common dish where wild goat is used but I think that has a lot to do with parts of the world that tend to eat a lot of goat and less to do with the meat being optimum for curries and nothing else. We've roasted goat just like you'd roast any other meat, cooked backstraps in a pan and had them with diane sauce, used the meat for sausages or mince meat the same way you'd use any other mince meat. We shot a goat a couple of days ago and it's all getting ground up and cut with ground wheat, parsley, salt, pepper, and cinnamon, cooked on skewers over a fire and then drizzled with lemon juice.

Any mention of Q fever involves the same sort of risks with domestic sheep and cattle. Goats aren't necessarily more prone, to my knowledge. I may be wrong on that.

Glands are all in the same places as any other game you might be familiar with. The ones inside the leg that sit between the silverside and topside (bottom round and top round), between the flank and the front of the back leg, and between the front of the shoulder and the neck.

A couple of videos of mine with some goat hunting if you're interested.

 

[aftriathlete]

Cooked up an old Billy today in the crock pot, slow cooked it all day with a Jamaican curry recipe I found online. Family approved!

 

[Arcticmanak]

Goat curry is sensational.

 

[Tahoe1305]

How fun /scary is that hunt??

 

[cjdewese]

Birria - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Best way I've eaten goat.

 

[Hunt4lyf]

Birria - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Best way I've eaten goat.

Agreed, Birria is delicious!

 

[AK Troutbum]

I've eaten more than I care to think about. Lots of Australians eat them, although there might be a little less of it happening now because there is a big market around trapping them or rounding them up live and selling them to overseas markets.

Feral goats don't necessarily have one rut like most deer species do, so it's common to find them rutting at many different times through the year. This is compounded (obviously) by them reproducing young at all times of the year so obviously nannies all come into season at various times based on their age. For this reason, many billy goats are constantly smelling rutty. They urinate on themselves all the time, and it smells a lot worse than deer species I've smelled down there way (I've never smelled elk or whitetail or mule deer, etc).

The meat of billy goats does have a bit of a smell about it but it eats OK. It can just be tough, the same as any other animal that might be getting on in age. The biggest mistake I see people make with goats is they are careless when they are field dressing and handling the meat. Try and grab a piece of skin and hang onto it while you're skinning without adjusting your grip, and skin far enough to where that skin lays over by itself and doesn't fall back onto the meat. Then, be careful how you're grabbing the meat.

The younger ones are delicious, but any young animal is going to be delicious (within reason). Despite looking reasonably big, goats carry a lot of their weight/condition in their guts and they look bigger than they are because of how long their hair can be. Despite having dressed out hundreds of goats, I'm still frequently surprised at how small their back legs are ones you skin them and take them off the carcass.

Curry is a common dish where wild goat is used but I think that has a lot to do with parts of the world that tend to eat a lot of goat and less to do with the meat being optimum for curries and nothing else. We've roasted goat just like you'd roast any other meat, cooked backstraps in a pan and had them with diane sauce, used the meat for sausages or mince meat the same way you'd use any other mince meat. We shot a goat a couple of days ago and it's all getting ground up and cut with ground wheat, parsley, salt, pepper, and cinnamon, cooked on skewers over a fire and then drizzled with lemon juice.

Any mention of Q fever involves the same sort of risks with domestic sheep and cattle. Goats aren't necessarily more prone, to my knowledge. I may be wrong on that.

Glands are all in the same places as any other game you might be familiar with. The ones inside the leg that sit between the silverside and topside (bottom round and top round), between the flank and the front of the back leg, and between the front of the shoulder and the neck.

A couple of videos of mine with some goat hunting if you're interested.

First off, very well done videos and knife/butchering work! I also enjoyed seeing the M94 getting a little field time, as I’ve always been partial to lever gun and especially the 94’s. Quick question for you, I noticed that you were never wearing gloves and you never seemed to have any blood on your hands (or actually anywhere else for that matter), how did you manage to accomplish that? In the second video there appeared to be water readily available, but I didn’t really notice any in the first video, so I’m just curious. Again, great job, I really enjoyed watching these.

Sorry to the OP, I’m not trying to derail your thread, but I just wanted to give some kudos. I’m also very much interested in hearing about how folks are preparing their feral goat meat, as we’re headed down to Hawaii again this winter and plan on chasing them around a little while we’re down there.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[aftriathlete]

First off, very well done videos and knife/butchering work! I also enjoyed seeing the M94 getting a little field time, as I’ve always been partial to lever gun and especially the 94’s. Quick question for you, I noticed that you were never wearing gloves and you never seemed to have any blood on your hands (or actually anywhere else for that matter), how did you manage to accomplish that? In the second video there appeared to be water readily available, but I didn’t really notice any in the first video, so I’m just curious. Again, great job, I really enjoyed watching these.

Sorry to the OP, I’m not trying to derail your thread, but I just wanted to give some kudos. I’m also very much interested in hearing about how folks are preparing their feral goat meat, as we’re headed down to Hawaii again this winter and plan on chasing them around a little while we’re down there.

Nice, shoot me a message when you come out! If hunting Oahu just check the regs to see which areas are open, I know the main one I've been hunting just closed for both bow and rifle for bird season for the next few months.

How fun /scary is that hunt??

Man it is a TON of fun. Really extreme terrain though, and the rocks are both sharp and slick, which is a strange combo. It's always hot and humid and the ground is always wet or at least damp, so it's a little bit treacherous for sure. I love it!

Birria - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Best way I've eaten goat.

I got a recommendation for birria tacos for mouflon sheep recently too, and I wondered if that would be a good way to make this goat. I'll have to try this next time, maybe I'll give it a shot this weekend.

 

[FLATHEAD]

When I was just out of H.S,, I was dating this back - woods gal who's dad
was a moonshiner and also raised goats.
So I got to taste quite a few. They actually werent all that bad, some were
tough, others not so much. He mostly just grilled them.

 

[cjdewese]

I got a recommendation for birria tacos for mouflon sheep recently too, and I wondered if that would be a good way to make this goat. I'll have to try this next time, maybe I'll give it a shot this weekend.

Birria tacos are the best.

 

[gadwallop]

Everyone seems to be in consensus, low and slow and spice it well. A couple cultures do goat and sheep very well (good ole Mutton), so if you don't like a curry look into old Spanish or French recipes. Poor man's meat doesn't mean it has to be lacking at all in flavor and texture, if you love it well enough in the kitchen. Good luck!

 

[Wilderlife]

First off, very well done videos and knife/butchering work! I also enjoyed seeing the M94 getting a little field time, as I’ve always been partial to lever gun and especially the 94’s. Quick question for you, I noticed that you were never wearing gloves and you never seemed to have any blood on your hands (or actually anywhere else for that matter), how did you manage to accomplish that? In the second video there appeared to be water readily available, but I didn’t really notice any in the first video, so I’m just curious. Again, great job, I really enjoyed watching these.

I'm not too sure, mate. Sometimes I get plenty of blood on my hands and sometimes I don't. A lot depends on where the animal has been shot and whether I gut the animal or not. If the animal has been shot in the heart/lungs and we take the guts out I'll always get blood on my hands, but most of what we do here (I mean me and my wife/friends, not necessarily Australians as a whole) is take the meat off without gutting the animal.

Both videos were shot at the same place so there was plenty of water available (besides the top of the mountain with the first big billy goat I shot). If an animal has bled out properly there isn't much blood within the meat itself once I start skinning and field butchering. If you make your cuts properly when skinning and leave all the meat on the animal instead of on the skin there is less chance of blood covering everything as well.

It's a little hard to explain but I want to make plenty more videos about field processing and home butchering over the next 12 months. It's starting to get warm here now so it might have to wait until May for me to want to do it, but we still kill plenty of stuff for meat over our summer but the field stuff is done very quickly for obvious reasons.

Here's a video showing a bit more detail with how I process a lot of my game. It's very clean but in the end of the video when I'm talking about the knife you see some blood on my hands.

Sorry to fill the thread up with this stuff but I apply the same techniques to the goats I hunt.

 

[aftriathlete]

Don’t be sorry, it’s all good! I did some version of a gutless method with this billy, just took the back straps and the 3 good quarters without gutting it. I was kinda surprised frankly that my brand new Benchmade skinning knife wasn’t sharper, the guy I was out there with had a Havalon and it was way way sharper. I’ll have to do some work on this Benchmade before next time out, but for a new knife out of the box I expected better.

 

[AK Troutbum]

I'm not too sure, mate. Sometimes I get plenty of blood on my hands and sometimes I don't. A lot depends on where the animal has been shot and whether I gut the animal or not. If the animal has been shot in the heart/lungs and we take the guts out I'll always get blood on my hands, but most of what we do here (I mean me and my wife/friends, not necessarily Australians as a whole) is take the meat off without gutting the animal.

Both videos were shot at the same place so there was plenty of water available (besides the top of the mountain with the first big billy goat I shot). If an animal has bled out properly there isn't much blood within the meat itself once I start skinning and field butchering. If you make your cuts properly when skinning and leave all the meat on the animal instead of on the skin there is less chance of blood covering everything as well.

It's a little hard to explain but I want to make plenty more videos about field processing and home butchering over the next 12 months. It's starting to get warm here now so it might have to wait until May for me to want to do it, but we still kill plenty of stuff for meat over our summer but the field stuff is done very quickly for obvious reasons.

Here's a video showing a bit more detail with how I process a lot of my game. It's very clean but in the end of the video when I'm talking about the knife you see some blood on my hands.

Sorry to fill the thread up with this stuff but I apply the same techniques to the goats I hunt.

Yeah, I haven’t gutted an animal in many years, although when taking out the loins you usually have to work around the gut sack/intestines a little. Inevitably though, when taking off the hind quarters, I always seem to cut through the femoral vein and or artery.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Wilderlife]

Don’t be sorry, it’s all good! I did some version of a gutless method with this billy, just took the back straps and the 3 good quarters without gutting it. I was kinda surprised frankly that my brand new Benchmade skinning knife wasn’t sharper, the guy I was out there with had a Havalon and it was way way sharper. I’ll have to do some work on this Benchmade before next time out, but for a new knife out of the box I expected better.

Stacks of variables when it comes to 'sharp', too. I feel that some people rely on a knife coming sharp when brand new and hoping the super steel will keep it sharp for ages, but they don't know how or where to cut and quickly dull it anyway. Some of the knives I've been using lately are very good steel but I've still had weekends where I may process four/five/six animals in the field with a 1095 knife and I just maintain the edge as I go and they still shave at the end of it all.

 

[aftriathlete]

Made these today, a quart bag of cubed goat so maybe 2 lbs of goat meat, plus I threw in a pound of beef short ribs for the fat.

They. Were. Incredible.

The Best Beef Birria Tacos Recipe (and quesabirria too!) · i am a food blog

These instant pot or stovetop homemade birria tacos are the best thing ever. So easy, addictive, and authentic.

iamafoodblog.com

 

[Wilderlife]

Those look fantastic!

 

[doc holiday13]

save your goats fat trimmings, render it, make soap. Bring soap on your next goat hunting trip and you can clean yourself up post butchery .. It would be a like a full circle