Our good friends stopped over on Monday and said, “Do you want a pig?” In our hillbilly redneck world that means they want to know if we want to butcher pigs with them. The freezer is heading towards empty so the answer was a definite YES! It’s not a job I love to do, but the meat is the best and the price is pretty darn good too.
On Tuesday, Hubby and our friend killed and skinned three pigs. They hung them from the ski loader bucket overnight to cool.
Then Wednesday night we went over to cut the meat up. This is not a favorite job of mine but as is said, “Many hands make light work.” This is especially true with this job.
We cut meat from the bone. We saved a few roasts and a few pork chops. The rest was cut up and ground into sausage. Here’s a photo of our daughter Kalissa and our friend Mandy filling the sausage.
Kalissa is turning the crank on the stuffer and Mandy is coiling it into rings. The rings and the pork chops are all going to the smokehouse overnight. I’ll go back to their house today to help wrap the meat.
Our friends have been doing this for years and years…He has done it his whole life. They have all the equipment…grinders, meat saws, tubs, knives, sausage stuffers….and the know how too. All we supply is a little labor.
Butchering is something that I didn’t grow up doing. Yes, we butchered chickens…but not pigs or beef. It’s a hard job…one that I am glad is done for the season…now we can enjoy the benefits of fresh pork.
Today I am hooking up with the Barn Hop….go check out see what others are working on.
Wow, I admire you! We raise our own hogs and beef but that’s about as far as it goes. When they’re ready, dh takes them to a local processor and a few weeks later, we pick them up all cut up and frozen and wrapped nice and tidy. I’ve done chickens before but I probably wouldn’t even do that again. But you are so right-the meat on home-raised (or in our case small-farm-raised) animals is so much better.
I’m pretty much a suburban girl. My first time seeing something like this was when a neighbor has bagged a deer and had it hanging in his yard. Talk about a head turner. LOL!
City Girl here ! I give you a lot of credit ! sure wish I knew how to and lived on or had a friend on a farm ! It’s wonderful you can do you own food. My sister and I canned some chicken this year ; that was a 1st for me !
We do this too! It is a hard nasty job but worth it in the end. My kids love when we do this, they think it is fun! LOL!
Kristie
Farm girl here…sure wish could get myself a home grown pig! I’m not willing to raise my own any more though. :) We process our own deer and elk and buy half a local farm raised beef every year. Hard work yes but so worth it.
My great aunt was a butcher. I remember my grandparents butchering a hog. Thanks for resurrecting memories of these wonderful folks! Homemade sausage is the best!
We also butcher–hogs, deer, & elk go in our German sausage. We make 1500 lbs of sausage each year during Martin Luther King’s weekend. About 10 families are involved and have been doing this for 4 generations. We make varieties of bulk, smoked, breakfast, & potato. I don’t really care for the breakfast sausage and my favorite is potato & smoked. O.K. I admit that I also like bulk. There is just so much one can do with bulk. It wouldn’t hurt my feelings if we did away with the breakfast one, but there is this one family…. It is great to know that people all over the country keep up on this tradition!
Fresh pork…YUM!! The best part is you know where it came from and how it was raised and butchered. More than what we can say about the meat we buy in the store. I was raised with butchering and it’s still hard work, but worth it in the end.
City girl here. I remember one year that my mom tried to butcher a chicken – it ended up in the trash. Plus the rest of the chickens, that we got at Easter time, were sent to a farm. Thanks for sharing.
My folks always had meat commercially processed, but once, a baby pig got under the tractor tire when Dad went in to fill the feeder. We made sausage out of him and had a big sausage and waffle feed for friends and family.
for the first time i am raising a pig to fill my freezer. i dont have the know how to do the butchering myself i will be going to a local butcher.my question is just how do i get want out of the pig? we plan on going to the butcher when the freezer filler is about 250/300 pounds.can anybody recamond a website or ideas?thanks kim&john