Cow Butchering Workshop (3/11 & 3/25)

Complete Cow Butchering Workshop and Cow-share!

Sat 3/11: 10-4 AND Sat 3/25: 10-4

Learn how to slaughter, dress, quarter and butcher a cow using traditional methods, with a pastured, grass-fed beef meat-share option!

In this workshop, we’ll take apart a noble Jersey bull at Turtle Bend Farm in Montgomery, MA. We’ll learn about butchering, charcuterie and anatomy as we transform a whole, majestic creature into food for us humans. Reconnect with these skills, food, the land, and the long lost experience of making meat in community!

All parts of the cow will be used, including hide, hooves, organ meats, bones and blood. We will explore sausage and traditional meat curing like drying and smoking. Lastly, we will learn to use the sinew for string, hooves for glue and how to prepare the hide into a finished leather. Attendees will be expected to roll their sleeves and participate. All this will be done in the respectful and open hearted context of interdependence with a focus on gratitude, interconnection, and safety.

This workshop covers two Saturdays, two weeks apart. The first, 3/11 will cover cow care, slaughter, skinning, dressing, organ meats and quartering. The second, 3/25 will cover primal and subprimal, packaged cuts, and allows the carcass to properly age.

Educational workshop attendee: Attend both Saturday workshops. $120-180 sliding scale. 65+ free. This option does not include cow share co-ownership.

Cow-share: Includes both workshop days and co-ownership share of the living cow. On 3/25, co-owners take home a share of mixed cuts, packaged beef, estimated to be 20-30 lbs. $320-360 sliding scale.

As an cow-share participant, you are co-buying a share in a living Jersey cow, (‘Gunner’), alongside the other paying cow-share participants, BEFORE 3/11/2023. This workshop is not a ‘meat CSA’ nor a sale of meat from Turtle Bend Farm, nor will the meat be processed or packaged in a certified USDA facility, it is not intended for sale or resale – but rather the consumption of the workshop participants, their families and pets.

Bring a potluck lunch, a knife, a cooler or way to transport meat, water for the day, and prepare to be outside all day in potentially cold weather! Sorry, no pets that can’t fit in a pocket. Children under 13 free.

NOTE: Select “LOCAL PICKUP” for shipping option during checkout!