>>21399925the difference is there is way more shank per carcass when compared to an oxtail
if you count foreshank you have even more to work with
one whole oxtail is probably going to provide a family of four with enough meat to eat, probably equivalent to 1-2 slices of shank
if you get about five shank steaks(chops) from a single hind shank, that's ten from hind only per carcass
the fore shank won't yield quite as much iirc, maybe three good cuts
that's about 16 finished shank cuts that are significantly meatier than cut up oxtail, which has maybe 3-4 vertebrae that have any useable amount of meat on them, and the rest are basically just bone
my point with all this is that I doubt shank will be going the way of oxtail any time soone because there is so much more supply, conservatively I would say there is eight times as much available shank meat per carcass when compared to oxtail
I haven't worked as a butcher in over two years but before that I was in the industry for ten years, which included a mixture of regular grocery store boxed meat cutting and true whole carcass disassembly butchery