When raising pigs, it’s essential to provide adequate access to water, an easily accessible pig feeder, and shelter (like this DIY pig shelter). When butchering time comes, it’s just as essential to put in the same kind of thought and respect for your pigs.
Our Butchering Experience
Raising pigs for meat is a fast and simple way our family practices supplying for our needs. Our goal is to continually grow in our knowledge and skill by taking stewardship over our resources while developing relationships to promote community sufficiency.
This passion led us to participate in hosting the first annual Okie Homesteading Conference. This event brought beginner and seasoned homesteaders together to teach, learn, build confidence, and enjoy fantastic food and live music.
One of the featured events was a whole hog processing workshop with Andy and Doug from Hand Hewn Farm. Their expertise was a welcomed resource in growing our knowledge and skill in understanding how to butcher a pig.
Preparation for Butchering Pigs
It is not good practice to begin the butchering process before taking all the necessary steps to be prepared. Here are a few things to keep in mind before butchering a hog.
Where to Butcher
Always kill the pig where it lives. Moving an animal stresses it. Don’t move pigs, and don’t isolate them. You will taste the stress in the meat.
When I go into the pig pen to slaughter the pig, it isn’t afraid of me. It has no reason to be. It doesn’t recognize my shotgun as a weapon.
When to Butcher
Most farm owners wait for the cooler fall or early winter days before they butcher their pigs. Unless you have a large meat cooler, the cleaned carcass must hang and cool for up to 24 hours before the meat will be cut and packaged.
Avoid hot days, which will draw insects to the slaughtered pig. Also, remember that you will be battling blowing dirt and debris if it’s windy.
I never put a pig down when it’s eating because pigs move all over the place when they eat. It’s so much easier to shoot it when it’s drinking.
Give them water or milk or even cider. The drink doesn’t matter. When they come to drink, they will hold their head still, and you have an 8-12 second window to take your shot.
Know Your Gun
A 410 shotgun is a good choice for slaughtering pigs. It has a two-and-a-half-inch round slug, providing enough gunpowder to do the job efficiently. Using a slug will make cleaning the fragments from the skull easier because a hollow point will tear things up more.
Some people use a .22 caliber rifle, but depending on the type of hog and the thickness of the skull, it may not be as efficient.
Processing the Pig’s Head
You should cut the pig’s skull in half after butchering it to make it easier to fit into a stockpot. Sawing the pig’s head in half also makes cleaning inside the ear canals easier. Pigs have very dirty ears, and you don’t want that going into your stockpot.
Also, there may be some lead in the head from the slug. It’s important to be sure that all the lead is removed from the skull before you process it for eating.
Once you cut the head in half, remove the jowls. Jowl meat can be used like bacon or made into ground pork because it has a good fat-to-meat ratio. Also, use jowl meat to make an Italian cured meat called guanciale.
A common practice is to boil the pig’s head to make soups and stocks. The head meat can also be used to make brawn, a pork cold cut, or made into head cheese.
Supplies Needed to Butcher Pigs
- Scalder – You’ve got to have a way to scald the skin to make it easy to scrape the hair off the pig. We are using a 55-gallon drum. The whole pig won’t fit at once, so we will have to scald the bottom half and then flip the pig and scald the top half.
- Sharp Knives – Plan to have a variety of sharp knives handy, including a boning knife and a filet knife. You will also need a sticking knife to bleed the pig.
- Saw – Using a saw to cut through bone is much easier than using a knife.
- Hose and Fresh Water – Rinse the pig with fresh water often throughout the process to avoid contamination.
- Firewood or Propane – Build a fire under whatever you use to scald the pig. A propane burner is easier to keep consistent, but if you only have firewood, that’ll work too. The water must be hot to make the scraping process efficient.
- Gun – Always practice gun safety and take the time to ensure a clean and humane kill.
- Large Bowl – If you collect the pig blood for blood sausage, use a large clean bowl. The blood will need to be stirred and cooled quickly to prevent coagulation.
- Tractor – A tractor is very handy to aid in lifting the pig to scald it and hang it for cooling. You can also accomplish this with manpower and a pulley system with enough helpers (watch the video to see how we did it at the conference).
- Hanging System – You will need to use a gambrel to hang the pig and a chain or a rope to lift the pig.
- Scraper – After scalding the pig you need to scrape the skin. Use a sharp knife, a hog scraper or a razor to scrape the hair off the pig. After scalding the pig, the hair will come off easily.
- Meat Grinder – If you choose to make sausage, it’s handy to have a meat grinder.
- Container – Use a relatively large container to catch the guts during evisceration.
How to Butcher a Pig Step by Step
- Starting early in the day, heat the water for your scalder to 150°F. The pig carcass will displace much of the water in your scalder when you lower it, so only fill the scalder ½ to ⅔ of the way full. If the scalder overflows, it may put your fire out.
- Gather all of your equipment. Organizing all of your equipment will make the process much more efficient.
- Stun the animal by shooting the pig in the forehead two inches above where the eyes meet and perpendicular to the head. The slug will go right into its brain, and the animal will drop to the ground.
- Stick the pig. There is a 20-25 second window after the slug goes through the brain when the vital organs, including the heart, are still working. If you can sever the carotid and jugular arteries with your knife, you can thoroughly bleed the pig. Successfully bleeding the pig will help to avoid a lot of mess when it’s time to butcher. Pro-Tip: Be very careful when approaching the pig to stick it because, during the death throes, the pig can kick out with powerful back or front legs and take your feet right out from under you.
- You will sometimes want to save the blood, so have a bowl ready to slide under the neck immediately after you stick it.
- Once you have bled the pig, immediately hang it by the hind legs using the gambrel and a rope or chain. Suspending it will help to get any final blood out. A tractor is handy, but you can also use manpower and a pulley system to hang the pig.
- Slowly lower the pig into your scalder. We use a 55-gallon drum, so we can only lower one-half of the pig into the water at once. Be sure to continuously move the carcass around in hot water, and don’t let it sit at the bottom of the tank, which may result in cooking the meat. After a couple of minutes, the hair should easily peel off when you pull at it. Raise the carcass out of the water and scrape it.
- Once you’ve fully scalded the pig, pull it out and use your scraper to clean the hog. Flip the hog and then repeat on the other end.
- If you choose, you can skin the carcass instead of scraping it. It’s very similar to skinning a deer. To skin a pig, make cuts around the knee of each leg. It’s OK to begin with the front or rear legs, depending on the pig’s position. These cuts are followed by cutting from each leg to the center of the carcass. Loosen the skin around the hind legs and then pull the hide off.
- Remove the pig’s skull by first cutting the skull to expose the vertebrae. Use a saw to sever the vertebrae. After severing the vertebrae, cut around the head using a sharp knife. Find where the trachea joins the esophagus to make your final cut. Pro-Tip: The trachea will be a rigid tube with hard rings. Locate the Adam’s apple using your hands to find a hard lump where the trachea and esophagus join. Make your final cut here.
- The evisceration of the pig is the next step. Evisceration is the process of removing the guts.
- The first step is to remove the anus by standing behind the carcass and cutting around the tail area. Give a clearance of two inches to get the whole anus without the chance of puncturing it. Carefully cut around the anus and then grab it and move it side to side to cut the connective tissues that hold it in place.
- Next, move to the belly side of your pig. Start cutting where the back legs meet and slowly and carefully cut to the sternum. Slowly open the body cavity. Never stab into the carcass because this increases the chance of puncturing the bladder or the intestines, which can ruin the meat.
- Place your hand with the knife inside the carcass and open the body cavity swiftly. Cutting from the inside will prevent you from contaminating the meat by puncturing the intestines.
- Pull the organs from the body into a container under the pig. Gravity might do some of the work for you.
- Once most organs fall forward, you will see the diaphragm muscle and the connective tissues separating the diaphragm from the lungs and the heart. Locate the esophagus and follow it to the trachea, pulling the esophagus free.
- Remove the heart and liver with care since these organs are suitable for eating.
- The lining of the pig’s abdomen is leaf fat. You can use your hands to separate a good amount of fat from the muscle to make lard if desired. Leaf lard is that snow-white lard that’s great for baking.
- Inspect the pig’s carcass for contamination like dirt or hair, and rinse well.
- Allow the meat to cool entirely by hanging it in a cooler or, if it’s cold enough outside, in an area protected from animals, blowing dirt and insects.
- Using a butcher’s diagram, cut your meat into proper cuts being sure to capture the hams, pork chops and bacon.
A lot of times the butchering process seems really intimidating. Watching someone else do it once can help a lot. And participating with someone who knows what they’re doing is another great option.
We’re all on this journey of becoming less reliant on grocery stores and more self-sufficient with sustainable methods of raising and butchering our own meat. Learning how to butcher a pig is a great step toward this.
