I shot three pigs in the head this month.  One friend noted that kind of makes me the big bad wolf.  I identified with that.  We didn’t feed the pigs breakfast on the first day so when we offered Pig 1 some fresh grain and produce just outside the pen, he walked right out.  I wasn’t going to fuck this part up.  “Imagine an X between the ears and the eyes” I was told.  I held the .22 Magnum Long Rifle about 6 inches from his skull and pulled the trigger.

He went straight down and started convulsing.  Someone went straight in with a boning knife and cut the jugular on one side.  A crew jumped on top of the pig and started pumping the legs, trying to force as much blood as possible out.  Someone else was there catching the blood in a stainless steel bowl, stirring constantly to prevent coagulation.

Once most of the blood was out and the pig was still, we dragged it to our hoist rig next to the fifty-five gallon drum of 145 degree water.  We hoisted him up, dunked him halfway for five minutes, scraped all the hair off, and then did the same thing to the other side.  Next we cut his head off.  Then someone cut around the asshole, tied it off with some twine, and proceeded to open up the belly.  The guts came out fairly easily and were buried, minus the heart and liver.

At this point two guys began sawing the pig in half, so I headed back out to take care of Pig 2.  Pig 2 was way more of a bear getting out of the pen.  After a fair bit of prodding and bribing he came out completely on edge.  He smelled the site of where Pig 1 met his fate.  He wouldn’t stop moving.  Finally a piece of corn got him to keep his head in one place long enough to fire off a clean shot.  Down he went and met the same process as the former.

We hauled these 4 half pigs to a local commissary kitchen and hung them from a baker’s rack overnight in a walk-in cooler.  The next afternoon we broke the pigs down.  Once we started cutting and sawing it became clear to me all of the choices I had to make.  What types of cuts and what kinds of meals did I want to come out of my share of a half pig.

One helper in our slaughter group had recently returned from Hungary and made for us a type of Hungarian pasta that kind of resembled orzo but had the texture of cheese curds.  On top of this was made a meat sauce derived from pig heart, liver, and some of the small flank steaks extracted from early on in the butcher process.  Add a little apple cider vinegar, pig blood, white wine, and a few chef’s secrets and it was incredible, minus the texture of the liver.

All pig bellies were salted, peppered, stacked, and stored in a cooler.   The slabs of bacon were drained and flipped every day for a little over a week.  The result is a very salty bacon hanging a slab still in my mud room.  I just brought the ham home last night too after about a month chilling in a salt, sugar, and cider brine.  I now need to cook up some of the lard to seal the exposed meat surfaces.  It too hangs in my mud room.

Pig 3 was offed by professionals three weeks later.  They shot it quick, let it flop, hooked it in the mouth, and dragged it over to their processing truck.  Within about 5 minutes they had the thing almost two thirds skinned.  I had my two daughters in the truck so I left the pig to be processed on her own.  Blood was dripping out of a side door of the big silver meat processing truck.  There were already 4 half cows hanging inside.

Pig 4, aka Final Pig, was scheduled for the very next day.  I was late arriving because I had to accompany my wife in fulfilling our duties as members of a goat milking cooperative.  When I arrived the crew was all there, and the water was hot.  I walked in the house, grabbed the gun and headed back outside.  I was a little wired due to being late.  I said something to the effect of “Let’s do this” and entered the outer pen where Final Pig was already roaming around.  This pig knew something was up.  There was already someone else in the pen but the pig kind of charged at me, trying to bite my leg a little.  I smacked it and pushed back on her.  Another guy bribed her with a hamburger bun and I took my shot when it was there.

Down she went.  She was processed without issue and spent the night hanging from our hoist with no head cut in half.  The next day she too was processed and half of her now resides in my freezer in the garage.

I picked up the pigs from a farm in the county with my eldest daughter who was almost 4 at the time.  There were probably 15 piglets, roughly 50 pounds each.  A farmer friend who had picked up the pigs for me helped catch them.  Tricking them with food or the possibility of food he would grab a pig by the back leg while it would kick and scream bloody murder.  Aila was standing outside of the fence with her hands over her ears.  I held open the coffee bag while the pig was dropped in head first.  The bag was tied and placed in the back of my truck.  Once all 4 pigs were bagged and in the truck, we drove down and hosed them off as it was a hot day and I had a half hour drive back to our urban pig farm.

I will do it again.  We cooked up one of the pork chop roasts a week ago with the inch thick back fat still on.  It was incredible.

I kind of miss the pigs.  I can’t believe I killed 3 of them.  I still don’t understand life and death.

CC Elder

12/6/11