Butchering a hog.

[MrHank]

Next weekend me and a buddy are buying 3 hogs to slaughter ourselves. I have never done this before and any tips would be helpful. I know of many people that have done it and have got some good advice, but you can never get too much. Just planning on making sausage getting the tenderloin and ribs and making country hams. I am going to skin not scald and was wondering if I could basically cut this up like I would a deer.

[KYhunter79]

We do them exactly like you would a deer. Skin them out and quarter them up.

[drakeshooter]

What?????! You're not gonna render lard and eat cracklins? Blasphemy!:D

[barney]

Next weekend me and a buddy are buying 3 hogs to slaughter ourselves. I have never done this before and any tips would be helpful. I know of many people that have done it and have got some good advice, but you can never get too much. Just planning on making sausage getting the tenderloin and ribs and making country hams. I am going to skin not scald and was wondering if I could basically cut this up like I would a deer.
If you have good sharp knives and take your time you can save your bacon and jowel,weather you cure them or put them in your sausage,hate to see them wasted.hope you have a cooler or the weather cooperates? You can salt the hams down while they are warm,but to cut meat or grind sausage it needs to be chilled,at least over night. And the main thing about cutting the carcase up,and dont forget this,WHAT DONT COME OUT IN ONE PIECE WILL COME OUT IN ANOTHER!

[Foam Steak]

For really good pork chops if you can find someone with at bandsaw style meat saw you are going to be alot happier with your product. You can just remove the backs whole then bring them in to have them cut up.

Make sure you keep track of that big vien in the leg before you cut off the hams. You are going to need to find it again when you start pumping the ham up with the cure.

[barney]

Make sure you keep track of that big vien in the leg before you cut off the hams. You are going to need to find it again when you start pumping the ham up with the cure. I have cured probably 100 hams over the years, and I never did pump one, and never did have one to waste! Have heard of it though.:)

[WildmanWilson]

I say you'd better get some help from someone whos done it before. Theres more to it than you think. We always left the skin on a country ham. I dont know if skinning would work or not. You have to cure it then smoke it. Do you have a smoke house and place to cure it?

[RutNBuck]

i grew up killing 100's of hog each year we would always scold them and scrape the hair off and then cut them up as you desire
a .22 bullet between the eyes is very deadly ..we sugar cured the hams,made cracklins, (many wont have a clue as to what they are)
we made our own sausage, jowl bacon ..them were the good old days
when neighbors would help neighbors and kids learned where food actually came from NOT WAL-MART

[WildmanWilson]

i grew up killing 100's of hog each year we would always scold them and scrape the hair off and then cut them up as you desire
a .22 bullet between the eyes is very deadly ..we sugar cured the hams,made cracklins, (many wont have a clue as to what they are)
we made our own sausage, jowl bacon ..them were the good old days
when neighbors would help neighbors and kids learned where food actually came from NOT WAL-MART

Thats exactly the way we did things also.

[grouser68]

i grew up killing 100's of hog each year we would always scold them and scrape the hair off and then cut them up as you desire
a .22 bullet between the eyes is very deadly ..we sugar cured the hams,made cracklins, (many wont have a clue as to what they are)
we made our own sausage, jowl bacon ..them were the good old days
when neighbors would help neighbors and kids learned where food actually came from NOT WAL-MART

Exactely the way we did it! We used to have a Thanksgiving tradition, all my relatives would bring their meat hogs to Papaws house early in the morning, we would butcher as many as 15 before Thanksgiving dinner.It was alot of work, but there were plenty of us to do it. BTW, anyone else make a ballon out of the bladder? Yes, those were the good old days, Mamaw, and the women would render the lard in a large cast iron kettle after dinner.

[MrHank]

We are going to make country hams, a few guys I know who do this as well usually skin em and have no problem with their hams. I was going to make boneless chops and get them ribs. The neck for a roast or sausage and the front legs for roast, keep the hocks for flavoring beans. All my trimmings will go for sausage. I am going to keep some of the entrails for trot line bait next year. What am I missing? My buddys grandparents have a lard press but we don't use that much lard and it seems like moe work then I want to get into. As far as cracklins I heard they are good but don't know anything about how to make em. Any parts of the hog that I have left out and somebody wants it come on up and help me out and you can have it, surely somebody wants some pickled feet and head cheese or even some sausage casings:D

[grouser68]

To render lard, just cube the fat that your not going to use in your sausage, put it in a cast iron kettle and cook. It will look like bacon frying at first, ya gotta keep stirring, Mamaw always used a boat paddle to stir with. When the kettle has turned to all grease and the cracklins float to the top and are looking brown, take them out.Pour the grease in a lard bucket and it will cool to make lard. Ever thought of a pig bladder lamp?:D Take a straw and blow the bladder up, tie it off, get rid of any fat,veins, etc. and let it dry. It will almost crystalize, and harden. Then you can make your cuts with a small saw and make a lamp out of it!:D Do I actually think you will do this? No, but it's just a bit of useless info! The cracklin's are good to eat(like pork rinds), or, we used to use them to bait our fur traps.

[Ky'sFinest]

i hate to hijack your post about cuttin up hogs but you guys know your pig meat!!! i was reading your entry's and i am wanting to know if you can do the wild hogs the same way as farm hogs? i am new to the hog huntin deal and want to know what i should do with the meat?

[Butters]

Be careful with your shot placement if you are using a rifle to stun it. the area righ above where you are supposed to shoot them is very very thick skull and you will not get a clean stun. Be sure to hoist it up and bleed it out as soon as you stun it, that way the heart pumps the blood out. To do this you need a 6 inch boning knife works well. When the pig is stunned and hoisted up by the hind legs, find the tip of the sternum, insert the blade, go up at about a 45 degree angle, the push then you will be able to cut the aorta. Good luck.

[tomtom78]

I dont know what type of seasoning you are planning to use, but Legg's Old Plantation sausage seasoning is very good. Also be sure to keep your grinder cool. Heat will break your fat down, causing it to fall apart when cooking it.

[barney]

Be careful with your shot placement if you are using a rifle to stun it. the area righ above where you are supposed to shoot them is very very thick skull and you will not get a clean stun. Be sure to hoist it up and bleed it out as soon as you stun it, that way the heart pumps the blood out. To do this you need a 6 inch boning knife works well. When the pig is stunned and hoisted up by the hind legs, find the tip of the sternum, insert the blade, go up at about a 45 degree angle, the push then you will be able to cut the aorta. Good luck.
Not being a smart "A" or nothing, but how do you split the hogs hocks,to expose the tendons(while its kicking and thrashing) and insert the gambrel to hoist it,all before its heart stops beating? I go about it in a different way.Not saying your way is wrong.I shoot the hog in the center of its face, about 1 inch above its eyes,then the hog will drop(like a sack of taters)and will be motionless for 3 to 5 seconds. At this point a helper standing directly behind me,holding the sticking knife,takes the gun as I take the knife(in one fluid motion).I then stick the hog, inserting the knife at the point where the jowl and shoulder meet,severing the corotid artery, at this point its still motionless,with blood gushing with every beat of its heart.but at any second will begin to kick and thrash violently.This tecnique has ALWAYS resulted in VERY WELL BLED OUT hogs,with light pink flesh!

[RutNBuck]

as per the wild hog being the same as a tame hog I dont know i have NO experience with wild hogs..Usally the ones we butchered were raised thru the year and was "Fattened" up real good..

as per bleeding them out after the shot was taken grand dad would stick a knife in the juggler vein the hog (still on the ground) would begin to Squirt huge amounts of blood (i know this sounds gross BUT its a fact)

then after the hog was gone to hog heaven pappy would raise him up with the boom on the tractor and would allow him/them to hang for about 20 min until most all the blood was lost.
UK even did a video shoot and was supposed to air it a long time ago but i guess it was way too much for many to handle...

[Butters]

Good question, you are not being a smaart "A". you use a shackle, or chain with a slip loop. Many slaughter plants kill thousands a day that way. After it is dead, then cut the hocks.



Not being a smart "A" or nothing, but how do you split the hogs hocks,to expose the tendons(while its kicking and thrashing) and insert the gambrel to hoist it,all before its heart stops beating? I go about it in a different way.Not saying your way is wrong.I shoot the hog in the center of its face, about 1 inch above its eyes,then the hog will drop(like a sack of taters)and will be motionless for 3 to 5 seconds. At this point a helper standing directly behind me,holding the sticking knife,takes the gun as I take the knife(in one fluid motion).I then stick the hog, inserting the knife at the point where the jowl and shoulder meet,severing the corotid artery, at this point its still motionless,with blood gushing with every beat of its heart.but at any second will begin to kick and thrash violently.This tecnique has ALWAYS resulted in VERY WELL BLED OUT hogs,with light pink flesh!

[GSP]

Not being a smart "A" or nothing, but how do you split the hogs hocks,to expose the tendons(while its kicking and thrashing) and insert the gambrel to hoist it,all before its heart stops beating? I go about it in a different way.Not saying your way is wrong.I shoot the hog in the center of its face, about 1 inch above its eyes,then the hog will drop(like a sack of taters)and will be motionless for 3 to 5 seconds. At this point a helper standing directly behind me,holding the sticking knife,takes the gun as I take the knife(in one fluid motion).I then stick the hog, inserting the knife at the point where the jowl and shoulder meet,severing the corotid artery, at this point its still motionless,with blood gushing with every beat of its heart.but at any second will begin to kick and thrash violently.This tecnique has ALWAYS resulted in VERY WELL BLED OUT hogs,with light pink flesh!

Same way we always killed them and that was a BUNCH.
As for what Butters just talked about, stunning and hanging while kicking.
I went to a packing house back in the 60's with dad to drop off middling meat for smoking/slicing. They were killing as he described but they didn't waste a bullet. They had slip nooses that they slipped on back hocks. Hung them and slit them. As said on the movie Chism, "It was a gastly sight"! :eek:
Sometimes they only caught one leg and would hang them, Dad asked what kept them from breaking a ham, they said they never had. Left a long time image with me.

[Butters]

Either way will work. If you want to keep the blood for pudding, it is easier to collect if they are hanging up. As for the sticking without stunning, that is plain cruel.
Commercially, eletrical stunning is the most common and very effective. Only one leg is shackled above the hock until it is bled, after they are bled out, the tendons are exposed and the gambrel is inserted and then transferred to the rail hangers.

[GSP]

Either way will work. If you want to keep the blood for pudding, it is easier to collect if they are hanging up. As for the sticking without stunning, that is plain cruel.
Commercially, eletrical stunning is the most common and very effective. Only one leg is shackled above the hock until it is bled, after they are bled out, the tendons are exposed and the gambrel is inserted and then transferred to the rail hangers.

Yep, that was pretty bad. Things change in 40 years.... sometimes for the good.

[KYBOY]

Not being a smart "A" or nothing, but how do you split the hogs hocks,to expose the tendons(while its kicking and thrashing) and insert the gambrel to hoist it,all before its heart stops beating? I go about it in a different way.Not saying your way is wrong.I shoot the hog in the center of its face, about 1 inch above its eyes,then the hog will drop(like a sack of taters)and will be motionless for 3 to 5 seconds. At this point a helper standing directly behind me,holding the sticking knife,takes the gun as I take the knife(in one fluid motion).I then stick the hog, inserting the knife at the point where the jowl and shoulder meet,severing the corotid artery, at this point its still motionless,with blood gushing with every beat of its heart.but at any second will begin to kick and thrash violently.This tecnique has ALWAYS resulted in VERY WELL BLED OUT hogs,with light pink flesh!
Same way we did it. Though i remember one time we grabed the wrong box of shells. we used .22 shorts and they dropped them cold. We acidentally picked up a box of longrifle hollow points and that boar barely flinched(the bullet was fragmenting upon contact with the skull). It wasnt an easy time in the pen, Ill tell you that:D

[MrHank]

Well they are being delivered today, and from the sound of things I am in for an exciting day! I thought this was going to be easy.

[grouser68]

Well they are being delivered today, and from the sound of things I am in for an exciting day! I thought this was going to be easy.Good luck, and don't get foundered on those tenderloins today!:D

[MrHank]

I do plan on foundering on tederloins but it will be tommorrow. They are down in the barn in a stall. I read to not feed them for 24 hours before butchering so that they can pass alot of their waste thru before gutting. Just delivered a rick of wood and have 2 to deliver in the morning and then the rest of the day to do hogs. I did'nt want to turkey hunt anyway:rolleyes:

[MrHank]

I got the hogs killed and quartered up Sat., the first hog did as she should have and dropped on the first shot, the second was a little more hard headed, it took 3 shots too drop her and the first 2 did not even make her flinch, But they are done and in the freezer. We are haveing pork roast tonight and it smells really good. Between 2 hogs and 9 deer we should'nt have to buy any meat this year, except for some chicken here and there. I had a guy at work take the heads for the brains, tounge, and jowell bacon. I don't think I could eat that. I did make one country ham that after trimming weighed 24 pounds. It was a little more of a job than I thought but its done now.

[grouser68]

Good to hear it all worked out well for you! Did you render any lard, make any bladder lamps?:D

[MrHank]

No lard or lampd for me:D