Hog Processing Project

[processhead]

With inspiration and guidance from Deepwoodsbutcher and others here, my friend and I bought a live hog from a local producer and slaughtered it today.
The hog was larger than I would have preferred at #295 lbs live weight, mainly from a logistics and handling standpoint, but the actual slaughter went pretty well.
I threw together a small confinement stall on my utility trailer for transporting the pig to our hunting cabin. We have a good assortment of processing facilities there for butchering deer which helped a lot.
Probably the biggest issue we had was skinning the hog which we chose to do while it was hanging. Overall it went pretty well. It took longer than we anticipated. We did use the winch on an ATV to help with the skinning and we were glad to have it.
After skinning, gutting and splitting, we transported the halves back home to my outbuilding to chill overnight and plan to break them down tomorrow morning.
The hog was pretty chill about the whole thing which made putting him down quickly and humanely much easier.

[kyle]

processhead interesting. I can’t wait until tomorrow to read the next chapter

[salmonmaster]

processhead Ya, can’t wait to see what’s next. I might have the same project going on in a few months. Somebody our son knows has some hogs he wants butchered, and says we can have as much pork as we want. Never butchered a hog before.

[WVTim]

processhead Thanks, may be doing that myself sometime.

[processhead]

We did a lot of preparation before we even picked up a knife. Having everything you will need within reach helps a lot. Once you start cutting, you really don’t want to go hunting for that one other thing.
Thinking about what you are going to do before you do it helps immensely when putting together lists of stuff you will use when you are butchering. Just one example, we knew we would have the split halves on an open trailer for a couple of miles of dusty roads so we had plastic sheeting and tape on hand to wrap and tape everything before heading home.

[salmonmaster]

processhead o.k. I’m making a list, BE PREPARED check

[Jonathon]

processhead That looks awesome! Im glad you got help from users like Deepwoodsbutcher and others, what we are trying to do here! Do you mind me asking how you put it down? I’m guessing you didn’t have a stunner or a bolt gun, so I am guessing a firearm of some sort. What caliber and how did that portion go?

[calldoctoday]

processhead That’s a biggun indeed. Great job though & can’t wait to see the end results.

[Deepwoodsbutcher]

Jonathon I’ll be interested in the answer to that as well. I know the. 22 or. 22mag is a good option. I use a 410 slug on beef and would probably do the same with a hog my first few times. A nice clam hog, that this one seems to have been, would probably be easy to do with a. 22.

[Deepwoodsbutcher]

processhead looks like you did a nice clean job of it. It’ll be nice to see it all cut up too!

[processhead]

Jonathon
We just used a .22 LR. The downing went just the way it was supposed to. Quick and humane.
Of course the hog might have a different opinion.

[Deepwoodsbutcher]

processhead That’s the most important part! Great job

[processhead]

Deepwoodsbutcher said in Hog Processing Project:

processhead looks like you did a nice clean job of it. It’ll be nice to see it all cut up too!

Thank you. I also think it helped that the critter was not stressed or excited when we put him down.

[Deepwoodsbutcher]

processhead that makes a huge difference

[Spidey]

processhead Guess using the .357 isn’t needed, however it drops them quickly. Here is what we cut up last fall. It got down to 26 on a nice fall evening and easy to split the next morning. A bonus for me, since I get to keep all of the excess fat.

[calldoctoday]

Spidey .22 is nice as it retains as much undamaged meat, etc. as possible. Even that Hog’s Head is important.

[processhead]

Spidey That is about as perfect of weather as you could ask for for butchering.

[Dave in AZ]

processhead pretty cool! I’d like to try that someday, but have no facility in AZ to work and cool. Impressive!

[Deepwoodsbutcher]

Spidey that’s a nice rig!

[Deepwoodsbutcher]

calldoctoday got to save those jowls for bacon