Pig Slaughtering Day

Today, we slaughtered a pig.  In case you don't know, we tend to make, kill, and process a lot of our meat.  In the winter and fall is when we kill and process most of our meat.  Today was the first day of the season we actually went out and processed any meat at all.  It also happens to be my husband's birthday.  We took pictures of the process, but fair warning, it is gruesome for the inexperienced eye.  Also, we had to move the process indoors towards the end and didn't get a bunch of shots of the actual processing beyond the cleaning.  When we do another pig, sometime this season, we will have better shots that illustrate the process better.

First you have to string the pig up by the hind quarter trotters.  We are using meat hooks and rope slung over a low branch of a persimmon tree.  This is the heaviest part of the job and you really need two people to do it.  

Here my husband is cutting the throat to help the animal bleed out better.  This was not an ideal slaughter as we had to transport the corpse of the pig to our place from another town.  Usually they are bled out immediately after the shot to the skull with a .22 rifle.  This pig was a gift to us from our daughter and her husband so we had to do the process a little different.

We let the pig hang to bleed out for a few minutes.  Sometimes it's fast and sometimes it's slow.  The longer it takes from the kill shot to the hanging, the slower it is to bleed out.

Here he is trying to cut the skin, but not the intestines.  He is very ginger in this process because a single knick to the intestinal wall will allow feces to go all over the meat and ruin it.  

Here my husband is cleaning the pig off a bit better.  We did wash the pig off before starting the process, but he felt it wasn't adequate enough.

On this shot, he has already punctured the abdominal wall, without puncturing the intestines.  Here he is gauging how far he has to go down yet.  This process takes a lot of time.  One wrong slip of the knife and all the meat is ruined.  Also, note, this is a skinny pig, which means not a lot of fat, so not a lot of room for error.

He has it cut down to the sternum now.  He is finding the intestines and where they are.  He will detach them from the back wall of the abdomen.  He is also checking all the other organs manually, but he can't see them well yet.

He has detached the intestines from the back wall and is moving them out of the abdominal cavity.  He is doing this very gently.  Again, he doesn't want anything to tear.

He is now removing the anus.  The goal is to cut it free from the rest of the animal, while keeping the intestines intact with the anus.  That way all the nasty feces inside can be discarded at once.  We do not use the intestines for casings for sausage, though we know many that do.  Our dogs enjoy the intestines.  I make country sausage which need no casings.

The anus is removed and the intestines are coming out slowly.  There is some fat attached to the back he is separating the intestines from.

Almost out!

The abdominal cavity after the anus and intestines are removed.  You may notice the big red thing in there.  That is the liver, a prized possession in our house.  

Here is the liver and gall bladder taken out of the animal.  The gall bladder is the lighter colored sack on the liver.  It needs to be removed before the liver is further processed.

Here is the liver with the gall bladder removed.  This is the perfect time to check to see it is healthy and parasite free.  It was a beautiful liver.

He is further cutting down the abdomen to make room to take out the heart.

He removes the heart of the pig.  He is checking for any abnormalities.

Here he is showing my son that the heart is very much like a human heart.  My son got a great lesson on pig anatomy today.  We also managed to throw a little science in teaching about the chambers of the heart and how a pig heart was once used in a human's chest.  This is why home schooling and homesteading go hand in hand.  You experience it first hand.  No need for dissection class when you slaughter a pig.  

We skin our pigs and save the skin for processing into leather.  This will be our first attempt at making leather.  The last time our dogs ran off with the pig skin.  The skinning takes a long itme.  

It's getting late so I start to help with the skinning.

With a rabbit, you can just slip the skin, or pull it right off.  However, with a pig, you have to slowly and painstakingly cut as you tear away from the flesh.  It isn't so bad when you have a decent layer of fat on the outside of the pig.  Then there is a huge buffer.  This pig was skinny without almost any fat.  She was only seven months old and a Red Hamp X Berkhsire Mix.  They are heritage pigs which take longer to put good fat on.

We moved indoors after that and began to butcher.  It was all hands on deck at that point, so there were literally no hands free to photograph the process.  Here's a cut of meat though.

In the end this is how much meat we got from a tiny 80 pound pig.  This is huge!  Tomorrow I will go through and further break down the meat into sausage and choice cuts.  I'm beat though, so in the freezer it goes for tonight.  

Until next time!