It is a hard fact of life on a farm for folks who raise animals to stock their own pantry or freezer. Today we butchered a sow for freezer.
First she was put down quickly.
Hung her up
Skinned her; she was over 300 lbs.
As you can see she is as long as my hubby is tall.
She had lots of Manteca (lard) as you can see. Now I am cooling the meat before cutting it into package size bags for the deep freezer. We have another sow that will be ready this fall just in time to replace what we use of this one. In June/July, our older lazy hens will join the fray. Our animals are all well fed and taken care of; we teach our children to respect our animals who in turn give us meat.
8 comments:
Looks like a good one! You are going to can the lard, right? And make crackling cookies for the boys? Do you smoke the hams and bacon or send them out to be smoked? MMMmmm! I can taste all the goodies now!
Good humane pictures, BTW!
I wish I could send hams and bacon out to be cured and smoked! There's no place around here that will do it unless they did the butchering too. That is the main reason we have our pigs professionally done - we could slaughter/butcher, but not smoke/cure. We do our own goats, but Keizer meats does the pigs. And they do it very well, I must say.
This reminds me of my childhood.
This reminds me of my childhood, learning all the important chores on the farm.
Hey Sharon, I did put the fat away to make lard yep. It takes too long to cook down so, I won't even start until after the next butchering session. We gave the men who showed us how to dispatch the sow properly both hams since we haven't built a smoke house yet. Maybe that will be the next project for hubby now he has gotten done on the turkey house.
Aimee, I wish next time we will be ready for all that meat. We only took 1/3rd of the sow plus lard this go around since the friends who helped came from over an hour away. Just seemed the right thing to do since they had all the materials to make ham/bacon. Next I Hope I Hope!
Kiki, I just believe our sons are better off knowing how to take care of themselves and animals for their future life without us. Thanks for commenting All!
Believe it or not, I am tired from cutting meat yesterday. I guess I am way out of shape. :O) Mal
I have never helped with a pig. I have taken care of lots of chickens, but man, that looks like a lot... I think I would have to use the back hoe to hang that thing! Lifting 300# would be out of the question! I think you will have lots in the freezer this year!
Cat
I would have loved to have been there if even just to watch and learn!
We have not butchered a pig all by ourselves yet, just a cow and chickens. Although we did help package all of them.
I would love to have a smokehouse also! I took my hams to the our local meat market and asked them to smoke them and when I went to pick it up they had been brine cured and not smoked! I was not happy when I realized what had happened!
What is the recipe for the crackling cookies? I have some hogs and am thinking of trying to render the lard and make them. Thanks.
Post a Comment