Butcher

A butcher is a profession that slaughters animals, dress their flesh, and/or sell the meat. The trade is tied in with local hunting, farming and tanning. Many hunters, including hunts involving nobility, will approach a butcher to prepare an animal carcass to get the most money from it, and keep some for themselves for personal use. Farmers usually need the butcher to kill livestock, especially to both sell the carcass and to kill off any unwanted animals. Any skins or hides can be sold to the local tanneries to make extra income.
Other than the meats, and more specialist cuts, very little of the animal is wasted. Tallow (animal fat) is used for candle making, skins / hides are used as mentioned by tanneries, and parts like the bones, hooves and/or horns can be used for soap or decoration in the odd case. It is the butcher's regular duty to do all of the killing, and butchering.
It is usually bird & poultry, sheep, pigs, cows / oxen, and the like that the butcher would specialise in. They may have a small extra line in fish if they have any experience there, as well as more 'exotic' animal meats, such as venison (deer), boar, horse, camel and similar animals. This can vary by region, and religious dietary laws. Groups, like the Jews & Muslins, won't touch pork, classing the pig as a dirty non-ruminant with their religious texts banning it's consumption, and they treat boar as the same. Most larger animals are stunned with a sledge hammer beforehand, and in some cases the throat is quickly & cleanly cut with a sharp knife to cause rapid exsanguination.
The butcher might also make products such as sausages & blood sausages, salted cuts, pies and suchlike from some cuts, or leftovers. This helps to extend and expand the range of foodstuffs available. Many regions will have specific cuts, or meals centred round specific animals, that the butcher will help prepare.

Type

Retail