Missouri Breaks Ewe

[MHMT]

Nice job! We just had some ewe tenderloin and it was pretty dang good.

 

[LopeHunter]

Fantastic job!

I shot a ewe with a rifle in CO a few years back. I was also able to find a ewe which was without a lamb. The sheep biologist said that spring lambs should be able to survive without a ewe just fine by late summer. I trust science but since had options I intentionally made the choice I did.

Good luck getting a bighorn ram tag soon.

My ewe is lonely as I wait to finally draw a ram tag. 2016 is my year! The past 20 some years of "not drawn" in several states has merely been so getting a ram tag will be that much sweeter when that day arrives.

 

[Bambistew]

Congrats on the sheep!

I cut it normal, boneless, steaks, stew, big chunks for jerkey/roasts and burger.

Interesting on the rancid fat thing. I have had quite a bit of fresh rib meat with fat on it as well as fresh slabs of steaks with fat and it was amazingly good. Wonder if it goes bad in the freezer? I do trim off all fat from steaks, but not so much with the burger trim, close enough is good for me. Pork suet will go rancid in about 6 months in the freezer, and one reason I don't mix pork with my game meat.

We've had a couple rams that had really mushy meat. Not tender, but mushy when you chewed it. Hard to describe, just breaks down quickly and has the consistency of pre-chewed meat. The only explanation I have is both were older rams 11 and 12. The rest of the rams we've killed were a bit younger 8-10 and were fine, however and another 12 yo ram I shot was great. Maybe it was a combination of how long it "aged" after it was shot vs actual age? Most are cut and in the freezer in about 4-5 days tops.

For burger I mix ground lamb with the trim, it usually is 20% fat, at a 5:1 ratio meat/burger. It makes amazing tacos and chili.

I also make a batch of droewors and biltong. A lot different than typical jerkey, I can't stop eating it once i make it. I made over 50lbs of moose/sheep/caribou biltong earlier this summer... it was gone in two months.

Sheep and pronghorn make fine dried meat products, probably THE finest of all wild game I've eaten.

 

[Schaaf]

Thanks everyone! I thought by putting in for the Ewe tag it could maybe kill a little of my sheep hunting obsession. I couldn't have been more wrong and now I think about how I can make a ram hunt possible every day. As far as I can tell it's really down to about 2 choices if I want to hunt a ram in the next 20 years.

I ended up processing her just like everything else, the standard steaks, roasts, and stew meat and also left some for breakfast and Italian sausage but only cooked up the steaks shortly after I got home. I've heard that some have had trouble giving their ram meat away. I'm sure there is a difference between the two but so far my ewe meat has been phenomenal. Now I just need to have my wife take hunters safety so I can consistently get ewe meat in the house!