October 11, 2008

  og butchering day. There will be two of us to do it. I have butchered hogs before. The guy whom I normally have to butcher the large livestock has let me do a couple pigs when he is there on my own and he gave me pointers over the last couple years. Six hogs is a little intimidating without my 'hand holder', but I have butchered out enough large livestock that it is not going to phase me much, other than I am hoping I do not get overly tired. I have already worked close to 36 hours on Thursday and Friday alone.

If I had a choice, I would do three hogs one day and then three another day. But I don't have the choice, so I can't. My assistant for today has never even butchered a chicken, so he is mostly there for the brawn of muscles. It should prove to be interesting. My boyfriend has stated he would be useless from throwing up the whole time, so he is finishing painting the house to be out of sight of the butchering. Maybe I will have to start him out on fish?

The hogs are small for various reasons this year. I got them a month later than normal as I had to re-do the hog pens after the tree went through it, and I am butchering them about 3 weeks earlier than normal. But since they are not utilizing the feed, I do not want to waste anymore grain or time on them. Normally for years and years, the place I got them from has raised their own weaners to sell, but this year apparently they hauled in alot of weaners from Alberta to sell. The weaners are stunted. One is the size of a pot belly pig, the others twice its size. They are fat, but not tall or long. I am not the only one having a problem with weaners from that source. I already have my hogs lined up for next year and it will not be from this particular supplier. It is a shame about this year as 6 family's counted on this meat for the winter freezers.

9:43pm Update

We got underway about 4 hours later than I had hoped to, but we got done well before dark. One of the things which slowed us down was getting behind a fall cattle drive.  We literally were at the tail end of the herd and there was alot more cattle than this. Twice a year they take the cattle to and from the pastures. They had just cut the calves away from the cows to ship and they then put them temporarily in a field a few miles from the main ranch barns. 

Then we got hogs done. After the first one as a refresher course, between the two of us, we had the butcher time per hog at 18-20 minutes. I had been afraid that it would take 40-60 minutes per hog. 

My boyfriend even got brave and tiger torched a couple of them for us. It takes place of scalding the hogs and taking the hair off. After it is torched, then we scrape hair and hide. Then you get a nicely pink pig. 

My newbie teammate for butchering caught on really quickly and he is awesome! We got into a routine of this is what I do and that is what he does, as with the different equipment we preferred in knives and scrapers, he was better at scraping legs and I was better at the main body. It was cold out and about 1C, it could have been worse. I have done this in the snow and alot colder. But the wind was picking up and so we broke out the heavy duty clothing which makes us look like Stay-Puft marshmallow people.

We had a wonderful compliment from the guy who is cutting and wrapping the meat. he said that the pigs looked like they had been professionally done. That made me feel very good.

He agreed that the pigs look more like pot belly pigs. The one that is in the bottom picture is the smallest of the lot. The guy who cuts and wraps has butchered out pot belly pigs. He agreed these were poor stock and had everything to do with genetics.

In a way we were glad that our first time butchering hogs solo, that they were smaller. It made us have more confidence for the larger hogs we will be raising next year, as if they were any smaller, they would be the size of a cocker spaniel!! But we already have our butchering facility figured out for next year, from the two things which would have made it a little easier. And it really made me happy that the meat man was really pleased with our work.