Hobbyist Hog Harvest

One of my nephews and 2 of my brothers all 3 work in town, but live in the nearby country where they like to raise cattle and a few hogs in their spare time.  Early last summer they bought 4 feeder barrows (barrows are castrated male pigs) to feed out to market weight, around the 250 to 280 pound range.  Recently the trio had to decide if they wanted to truck hogs about 60 miles to a stockyard (selling as an unknown producer; likely receiving a low price), truck the hogs about 40 miles to a custom meat processor where there’s always a waiting list & services are expensive or do the work of putting pork in the freezer themselves.  The decision was made, and I got a call to provide guidance and some of the labor involved in home hog processing.  I previously had helped them, a little over a year ago, when they had to quickly cull a brood cow.  It happened in November and the farmers got lucky because temperatures dipped down to 27F the night the carcass was chilling out in the barn.  We made about 450 pounds of ground beef, but I didn’t take any pictures of cow processing at the time because it was before I fired-up the Pork & Beef Express.

Next, it was decided that we would acquire any needed supplies, setup a clean work area then wait for ideal weekend outdoor temperatures (in the high 20’s up to 40F.).  Ideally it should be in the upper 20’s for the overnight chill prior to carcass cutting.  The extended weather forecast showed New Years day and January 2nd as being ideal.  All 4 hogs were held off feed for 16 hours and at 9:00 AM we marked the 2 fattest for harvest.  With a shackle and backhoe in place the marked hogs were ran out 1 at a time.

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This is actually the second hog, however it shows a good picture of a clean drop in familiar and semi-clean surroundings.  I realize the hog in this picture looks small, but as you will see later it was actually in the 250 pound weight range.  A small caliber 22 hand gun was held pointblank and perpendicular to the center of the hogs forehead in order to assure a clean one shot drop.

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Unlike electric stunning where the heart is stopped by cardiac arrest, with mechanical stunning the heart continues to beat for a while.  When employing mechanical stunning it is very important to get a quick stick to release skyrocketing blood pressure before it starts bursting capillaries that later show up as blood splash in meat; especially the hams.  We opted to not do a prone stick in the hog pen, instead hoping for a quick shackle and hoist so blood could be drained into a plastic tube.  As it turned out the area was not confined enough to prevent the hogs from flopping around, but was tight enough to make it dangerous to get a shackle on them (could crush a hand against a fence post).  Dropping the hogs in the middle of the pen and hoisting them led to a slow stick on both hogs (not good).

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Hogs were then transported to an unheated under-roof  processing area.  Legs were sawed off, while being careful to not cut hind legs too close to the hock joint so they could safely be hung using the Achilles tendons.

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Skinning started out on a sawhorse table.  Scalded and scraped hog carcasses look a whole lot better, but that’s a ton more work and all the skin eventually comes off anyway.  We considered pulling the hides up, but could not mount a hoist high enough.

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A bar was placed through the Achilles tendons and a chain-hoist was used for lifting.  The ham region was then skinned further down and bunging (cutting around the anus) was also preformed while hogs were partially lifted off the table.

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Hung hogs were skinned down the back to the ears.  Keeping hide grabbing hands off the exposed carcass and keeping knife hands clean was stressed, to help prevent contamination of edible product.  Skinning close to the hide was also stressed, but that’s easier said than done for hobbyist knife skinning a hog.

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Pizzle (penis) was loosened, pelvis was split by tapping on the back of a heavy meat cleaver with a brass hammer and bung was pulled forward then tied off with cotton roast string.  Next, the sternum was split using a hand meat saw and guts were dropped into a wheelbarrow.

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Jowls had been skinned out while still on the sawhorse table.  Head was worked off at the Atlas joint and went with guts.

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Carcasses were easily split into sides with a hand meat saw.

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Chilled pork sides, hanging from movable scaffolding.

Dropping and dressing took about 2 1/2 hours, or about as long as hauling them to market and coming back home.  Sides were gone over well to trim off any contamination and back fat was trimmed thinner  prior to cut fabrication.

Livestock harvesting and much, much more is covered step by step in The Meat We Eat text book.

If you are interested in seeing fresh cut fabrication and the further processing of parts from theses pork carcasses click here.