A sheep pluck is the bundle of organs removed together from a sheep’s chest cavity during slaughter, typically including the heart, lungs, and trachea (windpipe), and sometimes the liver. The name comes from the act of “plucking” these organs out as a single connected unit. Because the heart and lungs are tied together by a dense tangle of blood vessels and connective tissue, it’s actually easier to pull them out as one package than to separate them individually inside the carcass.
What’s Inside a Sheep Pluck
The core components are the two lungs, the heart, and a section of trachea connecting them. The heart sits between the lungs, bound tightly to them by the major blood vessels at its top. These vessels carry blood from the heart into the lungs to pick up oxygen, then back to the heart to be pumped out to the rest of the body. That network of tubes is so intertwined that the whole assembly naturally stays together when removed.
Depending on the butcher or supplier, a pluck may also include the liver, the esophagus, and a portion of the diaphragm. Some plucks come with the larynx (voice box) still attached at the top of the trachea, though this isn’t always the case. The liver isn’t physically connected to the heart-lung bundle in the same way, but it’s traditionally grouped in because it was removed at the same stage of butchering.
The Haggis Connection
Sheep pluck is best known as the central ingredient in haggis, Scotland’s national dish. Traditional haggis uses the heart, liver, and lungs from the pluck, minced and mixed with chopped onion, oatmeal, suet, spices, and stock. This mixture is stuffed into the sheep’s stomach lining (or an artificial casing in modern production) and boiled.
The dish likely originated as a practical solution to a real problem: organ meat spoils fast. Food historian Clarissa Dickson Wright proposed that haggis was invented near the site of a hunt, where the liver and kidneys could be grilled directly over a fire but the lungs and stomach could not. Chopping the lungs, stuffing them into the stomach with whatever fillers were available, and boiling the whole thing in a vessel made from the animal’s hide kept those parts from going to waste.
Lungs typically make up 10 to 15 percent of a traditional haggis recipe. That detail matters if you’re in the United States, where livestock lungs have been banned from human food by federal regulation since 1971. The rule is straightforward: “Livestock lungs shall not be saved for use as human food.” This is why authentic Scottish haggis can’t legally be imported into the U.S., and American-made versions substitute other ingredients for the lung portion.
Sheep Pluck in Science Education
Outside the kitchen, sheep plucks are widely used in biology classrooms. Because the heart and lungs remain connected and their anatomy closely resembles the human version, students can trace the path air takes down the trachea into the lungs and follow blood flow from the heart’s four chambers through the surrounding vessels. Preserved specimens are sold by scientific supply companies specifically for this purpose, shipped in nontoxic preservation fluid. Some are sold with the liver attached, others without.
A typical classroom dissection involves inflating the lungs through the trachea to observe how they expand, opening the heart to examine its chambers and valves, and identifying where blood vessels enter and exit each organ. The intact connections between organs make it possible to understand how the respiratory and circulatory systems work as a single unit, something that’s harder to appreciate when each organ is studied in isolation.
Buying Sheep Pluck
If you’re looking for a sheep pluck for cooking, your best bet is a halal or specialty butcher. These shops routinely sell organ meats and are more likely to have plucks available whole or to order one for you. In the U.S., remember that the lungs won’t be included for culinary purchases due to the federal ban, so you’ll receive the heart and liver. In the UK, Australia, and many other countries, the complete pluck with lungs is available from butchers who process whole animals.
For educational use, preserved sheep plucks are available through biological supply companies like Carolina Biological. These come as complete specimens with heart, lungs, and trachea intact, preserved and sealed for classroom dissection.