Butchering day

Butchering is not something I take lightly. 

I have been seasoned into this task, helping and wanting to be a part of it since I was a very small child. 

It is never easy to kill an animal, and I do it with the utmost respect and in the most humane way possible.

I know that reading about this subject will be distasteful to some of you. Just remember, whether you're a vegan, a vegetarian, or enjoy a thick steak off the grill, you are only here because our ancestors hunted and consumed animals. It was how everyone survived back to the hunter/ gatherer times up until about sixty years ago when many people grew animals for food, and almost everyone had a garden filled with vegetables for the family to eat.

Once upon a time, there were no grocery stores!

 I believe that as a society, we have become too far removed from understanding where our food comes from. This is one of the reasons I started this blog in the first place.

Please don't think that I am cruel to my animals! I am, in fact, the exact opposite. I take pride in the fact that my animals are happy and healthy. Just know that their sole purpose on our farm is to be grown for food. It would be a waste of all my commodities and hard work if these animals were not put to their intended use.

I realize that many of you may have a difficult time understanding or even being okay with the fact that we butcher our own animals. 
We do it with respect and in appreciation that it gives its life to feed our family. 

It is done quickly and with the least stress possible on the animal, while in some commercial slaughterhouses, the animals are a lot of times mistreated, often using electric prods to make them move, they hear, smell and see death all around them and most likely are very afraid. This is the meat you might purchase in the markets, packaged neatly in styrofoam plates.
(please understand I am not lumping all slaughterhouses in this, I am sure as with anything there are some humane and respectful ones out there.)

Contrast that with our method of butchering out doors in the fresh air. One bullet, while eating something yummy, and it's over. No fear, no crowds of animals, no electric prods, just a few pets of affection and appreciation, surrounded by the people who have loved and tended you all of your life. 
A peaceful end.

It has been proven that animals butchered under stressful conditions emit stress hormones (like adrenaline) which toughen the meat and change its flavor. 

This is likely to be the meat sold every day. 

This is not anything we enjoy. It is done with a lot of sobriety and appreciation for the sacrifice that the animal is giving for the health of our family.

Everything we eat, we kill, be it a pig, a pea, or a pumpkin. 
It is the circle of life that has gone on for millennia! 

No disrespect to vegans and vegetarians. 

I believe in live and let live. Please don't judge me, as I will not judge you.

Last week we butchered YumYum. It was a necessity. When her time came to deliver her babies, she became aggressive and tried to kill each and every one of them.

What else could we do with a pig that became more aggressive as each day passed? 

I couldn't in good conscience send her to the auction. What if the purchaser intended to breed her? I would just be passing my problem on to another farmer. What if she injured someone in that family? 

Should I continue to feed her and use up resources and valuable pasture area on a pig that had become dangerous? To what end?

When one animal becomes aggressive it impacts all the other animals as well. It causes tension that makes all of them uneasy. There was a good chance that she could injure or kill one or more of Primrose's babies if they found a way through the fence, (which, in time, happened After YumYum was gone.) I could no longer use her as a brood sow, so what purpose could she have on our farm?

      PORK!

It was the best use for a now mean pig. It had gotten so I couldn't go into the pen with her. I couldn't trust her anymore. She would bark and stalk me from the other side of the fence. She was also stalking the cow! (Just for reference, the cow weighs 1600lb. YumYum weighed 530lb.) The Vet. said it best, "She took the test and failed, now it's time for her to go."

My stress levels have gone down now, not having to deal with her aggressiveness every day. Primrose seems happier too. I'm sure she felt the danger to her babies even though they were penned separately. Prim would often send warning barks through the fence at Yum Yum.

I have written in the past about how smart and funny pigs can be. This is still true. The reality is that there is another side to these animals. A mean pig is downright dangerous! They can do you severe harm especially as big as YumYum was. Again I refer you to the similarities between pigs and dogs.

Would you keep a vicious dog? Unlikely! You would probably give it a few fair chances and if it didn't change, euthanize it! 

This is the tack I took with YumYum. The only difference is that she wasn't a waste of life. She had a good purpose of nourishing and sustaining our bodies with hers. We appreciate that fact regardless of her behavior. 

There is no pork better than home grown pork! 
THANK YOU YUM YUM!