We've slaughtered and processed our own meat on-farm for years, primarily goats, deer, and poultry, and have found that these animals are fairly straightforward to deal with. Hogs, however, take a lot more work, care, and preparation to do properly, and there is remarkably little detailed information online to guide others like us who are independent-minded in learning such things. After doing our first smaller pig last year, we wrote up lots of ideas and observations on how to make things run more smoothly in the future, and followed these notes in setting up our slaughtering system this year. While we need more practice in the actual killing process (hogs are harder to kill cleanly than goats or poultry), we were very happy with the efficiency and practicality of our processing setup this year, and so offer this photo tour of the infrastructure & setup we used to allow just two of us to do this work effectively.
Note: this is not a post on
how to kill and process a hog. We're still working out our favorite methods, and with only two of us, taking step-by-step photos is quite impractical once we're bloody and busy. This just shows how we arranged the job and the tools we used, as a guide to others considering similar work.
Above is this year's hog, a full-blooded Berkshire we purchased post-weaning from JJR Farm, which raises certified organic pork about an hour south of us. We got him in May and kept him on pasture throughout the summer and fall, feeding out a certified organic feed along with as many vegetable scraps, dairy whey, and on-farm byproducts we could generate. We're ironically grateful to the Missouri Department of Agriculture for their idiotic
no-feeding-commercial-pigs-vegetables ruling, as this guy alone ate every scrap we produced and still powered through lots of grain; we're too efficient in our vegetable handling and didn't generate nearly enough waste to cut the grain budget for even one pig, much less several. We don't know his live weight when butchered, but the carcass minus head and guts weighed around 210 lb, so probably in the mid-high 200s total (head and guts are large and heavy).
Above is an overview of our processing setup; most of this will have closeup photos following. We waited for a series of days with daytime temperatures a bit over freezing, and nights just below, to keep the meat cold while handling outdoors. This cloudy day was ideal, as even cold sunlight heats what it touches. From left to right:
Scalding tank in which whole carcass is dunked to loosen hair before scraping.
Heating fire behind tank, heats water and cold farmers.
Temporary cattle-panel pen in which actual killing happens
Large stainless-steel sink for rinsing small intestines.
Stainless steel work table for scraping and handling carcass.
Plastic table for holding tools, soap, and other needs.
All-weather hydrant with soap and hose.
Tractor with bucket & chains for handling a heavy carcass with only two people
Note that the whole area is set up along an open, linear plan that allows the tractor to move forward and backward unimpeded. This very important for clean and practical carcass handling, as it needs to be moved from killing pen to scalding tank to work table, then eventually up to the main barn for hanging, and having open ground makes this easy, quick, and safe. You don't want to be bumping into things with the tractor or the carcass. We actually ended up moving the work table just in front of the scalding tank (as viewed in the photo) as a more convenient location to scrape the carcass, requiring less tractor movement.
Assorted useful equipment, from left to right: Pots and tubs for useful scraps (heart, liver, etc.), jar for collecting clean blood for blood sausage (didn't happen this time), knives & sharpeners, sanitary gloves and band-aids (in the interest of preparedness), bell scrapers for removing hair, burlap sack for dunking in hot water and spot-scalding difficult bits of hairy skin, sausage stuffing attachments (helpful for flushing water through the small intestines which we clean for sausage casings), salt for water that the small intestines are temporarily stored in after an initial flush, towels, vodka for dulling hog's senses prior to killing, soap & sponge, matches for fire, reference book in case just in case.
Not shown but also needed: A string to tie off the bung. We found that we needed more containers than we had for holding organs, tongue, jowls, ears, fat scraps (to be rendered for lard), and various other tidbits (such as the bladder, which we initially saved but didn't end up using because we found insufficient information on how to handle it). The knives shown are not sufficient for sticking a full-grown hog; one with a long, solid blade, preferably double-edged, would be ideal (
this appears to be a good example).
Main stainless steel work table (purchased at restaurant auction), sharp carpenter's saw for bone work, buckets for blood (collected for soil fertility reuse) guts and other nasty bits, all-weather hydrant with splitter, hose, and nozzle. The splitter allows for hand-washing at either the hydrant or at the end of hose. There's a bar of soap tied into a clean piece of scrap silk long underwear; this keeps soap accessible & suds form right through the cloth (pantyhose works best but we don't have any).
Scalding tank and fire. We weren't sure how well the seams on this old tank would hold up to direct heat, so didn't build the fire directly under it, but just off to the side. The tank is propped up on concrete blocks so we could shovel hot coals underneath and thus manage heat better. This works quite well and allows maintenance of a nice fire at all times to warm the cold workers. Next year, we might add one more course of blocks to allow a higher coal heap; it got a little tight under there. We were also concerned the tank might be just a bit small for our large hog, but it fit perfectly. Setting the water level about 2/3 full also worked just right, enough to submerge the carcass but not to slosh over meaningfully.
We prepped a double log cabin fire structure the day before so we could get the fire going with little effort in the morning. The firewood is mostly cedar scrap, both log ends and leftovers from on-farm milling, that produce a nice hot burn. We easily kept a good fire going most of the day, but let it die down when the tractor had to drive by so there would be no problems with stray sparks/embers. We positioned the fire relative to the rest of the work area with the forecast of a gentle north wind (photo is looking SSE), expecting the smoke to always blow away from us. Instead, as we should have known, the topography of our narrow valley meant that for much of the day the local smoke was blowing east instead, right into our scalding tank and scraping location. Figures. The shovel and rake shown were used to rake and move coals as needed. We monitored tank temperature (you want around 145F) with a small soil thermometer inserted into a hole in a cedar plank, which floats happily on the surface and gives a good reading. It took about three hours from initial fire starting to get the water to temperature. We actually overshot a bit, but cold water from the hose took care of that problem.
At left, .22 rifle and bucket of aromatic cedar sawdust (we have lots left over from milling). The latter works well for soaking up blood and odors, especially once the day is done, to help prevent too many predators and scavengers from descending on the farm. The rifle is used to shoot the pig prior to sticking (cutting vein in throat to allow proper bleedout). This is harder and more complicated than the straightforward killing of a goat or chicken; we're still not expert with this step. Quick version: it takes more than a quart of vodka to put a full-size hog to sleep (or we soaked it in too much corn), we haven't found a .22 to have the stopping power with a hog that it does with a goat, despite many references to the contrary, and we need a longer sticking knife. I got the cut basically right this year, but my knife wasn't long enough so it took several thrusts to get deep enough.
At right, tractor bucket with chains set up for hanging/transporting carcass. The hooks at each end of the chain can either go into a back-leg hock (hanging the animal vertically head-down, for blood-draining and gutting), or if you tie each pair of legs together first, the hooks go into the rope-tie, hanging the animal horizontally with its back down, perfect for transport, dunking in the scalding tank, and setting down on a work table for scraping. We fumbled with the rope a bit while trying to get the legs tied together properly; the rope broke once or twice, and getting a good knot around a tapered leg took longer than it should have. Next year we might try some straps that can be cinched down quickly around the legs. Also note the stump under the bucket; tractor hydraulics only hold their strength when the engine is running, so if you want the bucket off the ground with the engine off, you need to prop it up safely (I did this time so I could work on chaining the bucket just right without getting a faceful of exhaust). We leave the engine running whenever the carcass is hanging; I don't trust any props to hold up nearly 300lb of pig with us anywhere nearby; diesels burn very little fuel while idling and it's a worthwhile safety margin.
Killing pen made of four cattle panels with T-posts at the corners, tied together with baling twine. We left one panel end loose so it could be swung out as a gate (to get him in and us out), and secured it with a bungee. Next time we'll probably place T-posts at the halfway points, too, as a full-size hog can easily push through an unsupported 16' panel if you're not watching him (which I was). It's also helpful for the panel nearest the tractor/work zone (foreground in this photo) to be able to come off quickly, so you can drive the tractor in as soon as the hog is down and chain him up for maximum bleed-out. Next year we'll use bungees instead of string on that side, too, to make this faster/easier. Alternatively, hog panels would allow easier access as they're much lower than 4' cattle panels. The tractor bucket could be rested on one so it's ready to go if you drop the hog in the right place.
Preparations also involved gathering/preparing/purchasing a few things that aren't photographed, but here's a list for reference: Butcher paper, freezer tape, lots of regular salt, a little curing salt (pink salt), brown sugar (for curing bacon), diesel (for the tractor), proper food-grade containers for curing bacon & hams. We also put cattle panels across the front of the barn (to keep dogs/coyotes out), hung a scale off of a rafter, and hung a singletree off of the scale. A couple of old feed bags under this setup kept blood from dripping onto the gravel.
For reference, here's the order we work in:
- Shoot & stick hog.
- Hang by back leg(s) to bleed out.
- Hang by all legs to scald, using bucket to raise & lower carcass so that water sloshes all around it.
- Set carcass horizontally onto work table to scrape (can turn tractor off since weight is on table).
- Remove head when scraped (usually needs extra work separately to remove hair). We'll often also do some work on loosening the gullet and front-end tubes through the neck cut before hanging for gutting (see below), as it's much easier to do this on an even table than with the carcass dangling over you.
- Hang by back legs again for gutting; set large tub below carcass to catch guts as they fall out; we work from back to front (top to bottom). This helps keep everything clean, since we salvage many organs and the lower intestine for sausage casings. You could also do this while the carcass is on its side on a table.
- Hose out carcass thoroughly (hung from back legs if previously working horizontally).
- Transport to overnight hanging place, still using bucket. We were able to carefully transfer the quite-heavy carcass from the bucket chains to a singletree (rod with two hooks) chained to a barn rafter while keeping the carcass suspended, rather than setting it down on the ground and hooking it up to a pulley before hoisting. This kept the carcass off the ground, and didn't require the use of a rope pulley which works fine for 140 lb goats but which we were unsure about for a much heavier hog.
At the end of daylight, with two people working, we had the carcass scraped, gutted, cleaned, and hung; casings emptied, rinsed, and temporarily stored in salted water; and the working area cleaned up and liberally covered in sawdust. After dark, we got the small intestines fully cleaned, scraped, and packed in salt for sausage casings without staying up too late. That's with a relatively slow start, as we didn't even get the fire started until around 8:30am (hog went down a little before noon), given the demands for milking & other morning animal chores, and just not feeling the need to be too hyper about rushing the work.
For various parts of the next week, we cut up the carcass, started the hams and bacon curing, boiled bones & scraps for broth and chicken food, froze the bulk meat, cleaned interesting bits like the head and feet, rendered fat for lard, and so on. But the methods and setup described above let two people kill and clean a large hog on a long but not unreasonable day that was efficient and methodical.
Healthy breakfast: Diced sweet potatoes fried in lard; fried eggs & cured bacon. Side of strawberry yogurt (goat's milk yogurt, preserved strawberry jam). BTW, we define healthy as "hearty enough to get us through a morning of work without being hungry two hours later".
