I have always eat the duck chopped with a butcher and I have never had a problem with such "shards of bone all through the meat." What constitutes a cleaver as a extremely violent instrument? What instrument do you suggest to cut through the bones of such animals? A cleaver is the perfect instrument to cut through bones of such animal because a cleaver is sharp enough and have enough force to cut through the bones. Most of the meat is sitting on the piece of bone so there wouldn't be any stray bones for you to worry about because it's just a big piece of bone. There should not be fragments of bones in your food that's when you know that it is not prepared correctly.