Filed under: December 2016 | Tags: carnivore, hogs, home butchering, homestead, pigs, pork, sausage, scald, self sufficient, skinning, slaughter, slaughterhouse, Small Farming
December 15, 2016
Home butchering is best done on a cold day. Using nature’s refrigeration only makes sense! This sow was a bad mother, who killed her babies.(It happens sometimes when farrowing in nests) I have no need for a mother such as her, but we needed sausage. I dressed her out before the storm yesterday.
Today, inside our farm’s little slaughterhouse, we deboned her and turned her into sausage for our family. The sausage was very nice, with just the right fat to lean ratio. We will enjoy it in the coming year. It is a wonderful thing to have the knowledge and the where-with-all to be self sufficient. It is even better to be able to share those skills with friends and family.
Perhaps I should make a photo story of the butchering process step by step? I will wait for comments and proceed from there. I would leave out the “yukiest” photos, and simply show my viewers how to dress a hog from start to finish. I skin our pigs. It is much easier to do them that way. Plus we don’t eat the pig’s feet, tail or snout,so there is no reason to scald and scrape the animal.
I confess that having been a butcher as a younger man, sure comes in handy here on the homestead. We will soon be doing beef and a few more hogs before winter is over and maple syrup season starts. Winter is for relaxing, resting and butchering. We make is a social event spending time with family and friends. The youngest people in our family learn early where our food comes from. They also learn to take very good care of those animals and treat them with respect. It’s the cycle of life for us carnivores.
5 Comments so far
Leave a comment
RicelandMeadows 
Yes, that would be very interesting to see Ralph. This snow/cold is crazy for mid Dec! Stay warm!
Comment by Jacklyn Krysa December 15, 2016 @ 9:10 pmI will be writing a series for Rural Heritage magazine. I will also touch upon the topic here on my blog…Stay tuned 🙂
Comment by ricelandmeadows December 30, 2016 @ 10:26 pmOh how I miss being there to help my family….the laughter as we work and the bounty of full bellies and freezers too! Blessed are we the family keeps growing helping hands and minds eager to learn! So when you are capturing learning technics be sure to add some of the smiles made while you teach please! Luv you much!
Comment by Gert aka Donna December 16, 2016 @ 11:29 amWe miss you too!
Comment by ricelandmeadows December 30, 2016 @ 10:25 pmYes go into detail of thr butcher just do a disclaimer at the top and say the following post is yucky
Comment by stidhamranch January 25, 2017 @ 9:03 pm