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1. Never raised my pork, but used to buy one on the hood from a local farmer. Kudos for doing 2 in a row. Mine were always a year apart. I used A USDA guide for purchasing freezer meat as my butchering guide. Pretty much just a cartoon pic of where the cuts originate. That and memories of 6th grade anatomy. A few things I’ve learned. 1. If you want sausage casings, stop feeding a few days before butchering so the intestines are empty. 2. It’s a royal pain in the neck to skin the head and feet, but if you want homemade scrapple both are a must. 3. I found it worth my money to have a local butcher cure my hams and bacon. But he’s out of business now, so thankful for the info on doing my own.

   1. Nurse Kim, Thanks for the comments on casings. As a novice I didn’t try to save the intestines, but next time I will try it. I just make my sausages into 1 pd rolls for now.

2. How did you handle the lard? With two 400 pound hogs, you had to have a lot of excess fat.

   1. This is my first post. Please show my name to LT instead of using my full name. Thanks.

      1. Larry, you can change your name in the Name box under Leave a Reply. The software publishes whatever you type in the box. The editor does not handle name changes. & welcome.

   2. Larry, You are correct about a lot of fat! When we skinned the animal we took off most of the fat. I left about 1 to 2 inches on the carcass for cooling. When I did the butchering I cut the remaining fat off and saved about 6 pds of fat for sausage making, rendering for cooking grease and candle making.

3. Thank you, Animal House, for this very informative series. I believe you have a very good chance of winning one of the writing prizes. You have a good way to describing what you did & what you learned, & I hope you will consider writing on another topic.

   1. Thank you for your kind words. When I started this journey I didn’t have a lot of info so I thought I would share my story to encourage others to try. Too many of us think we can’t do something, when we really can!

4. Thanks for the great write up, BUT what’s the name of the book you refer to so much?

   1. Pete, The book is Butchering Poultry, Rabbit, Lamb, Goat and Pork by Adam Danforth. It is a Comprehensive Photographic Guide to Humane Slaughtering and Butchering. The website editors linked the word “book” to amazon for your convenience. You can find the link in the article.

5. Lard an easily be canned once it’s rendered out. Saturated fat stores in a sealed jar much easier than unsaturated fat, and it is much healthier too.

6. Thank you so much for this informative, well-written article! I looked forward to reading it every day.

   1. Florida Mom, Thank you for your support, hope you can try raising small livestock in the future.

7. We raised six heritage pigs last season opting to co-opt three of them for friends and using three for our own purposes. We use the fat to combine game meat for sausage making etc. I use an old grain chopper from sears and roebuck, and source wheat, barley, and pea screenings as well as other gleanings to make feed less expensive. The feed chopper is flat belt driven by an old Ford 8N tractor. Co-opting pork can be less expensive with 4 families sourcing feed and resource’s. One with an apple orchard and another who farms alfalfa and hay significantly lessen the cost of raising pork.

   1. R-E-B, what a great idea to co-opt pork with other families. Ill think on that for next time.

8. In my experience of hog butchering the hogs were killed using a 22 and were shot at all most point blank range in the forehead. I am just wondering in what part of the hogs body did you shoot?

   1. Anonymous, shot between the eyes, like the book advised. I was surprised the 2nd hog didn’t drop immediately. She went down in about 10 minutes, which was too long for my comfort.

9. I have read elsewhere (maybe on SB) that the proper place for a kill shot is the center of an “X” drawn between the left eye and right ear and right eye and left ear. This supposedly holds true for any livestock.

10. Nurse Kim, first great article. Thank you for taking the time to write this up. Second, as you found out a 9mm handgun is not the best weapon for dispatching a pig. The skull is just too heavily boned. A .45 ACP is on the edge too but far better than the 9mm. Use a FMJ bullet!

    What I have learned to use is a 5.56 Nato/.233 Win. round. A larger bullet isn’t necessary and if you have to use a follow-up shot on a running pig the round damages less meat.

    We put a pile of feed on the ground, shoot the pig between the eyes as it is eating and once the pig falls over, I put another round or two in the jugular which starts the bleeding process early. Bring the tractor into the pig compound, put a 3′ long piece of rebar in the previously cut rear leg tendon pockets. Fasten a chin to the rebar and lift up the chain, rebar, pig with the tractors bucket then properly slice the jugular.

    last, we make scrapple with the head and offal.I use my Grandmothers recipe for the scrapple with a few adjustments for our taste.

    Again, great job! Thank you.

11. Warning, this is a bit graphic however it is as quick a method as I know… I use a 22 magnum rifle with the highest grain round I can find. I’d never use a pistol. The rifle has higher velocity and larger calibers cause more meat damage. I use a single shot rifle for safety. My goal is the X between the eyes, the trajectory of the round is into the body cavity. Then as quickly as I can while the critter is stunned I stick the pig with a rather long very sharp knife severing primary arteries deeply into the neck and toward the heart before it starts to kick, and jump out of the way. It takes a bit of courage but reduces thrashing to about 20-30 seconds. The 22 magnum always penetrates the entire skull but doesn’t damage meat. Its fairly easy to track the round if you need to know. If you get the trajectory right look in the lungs. I apologize for the graphic nature of this post, I figure, if your embracing self reliance,and survivability you need to know.

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