~FALL SLAUGHTER FEST 2010~~

We recently raised two pigs from 7 weeks old to butchering age, which is about 6 months. One of the pigs was named Bacon and the other Sizzle. This was a co-oped adventure with another family. (One for them and one for us) This other family lives in the city so we opted to raise the pigs at our place.
Raising the pigs was a new endeavour that we had never embarked on before but the real challenge came when we decided to take it a step further and learn how to butcher the pigs ourselves. We wanted to do the butchering ourselves for a couple different reasons, one, we didn't want to pay the butcher, two, we have no idea if the meat we turn into the butcher is the meat we get back, and three we wanted to learn how ourselves. We all learned so much doing this project, and after tasting the meat I'm pretty sure we'll be doing it again. :)
Here are some pictures.

 Bacon and Sizzler

We raised them on scraps from the dinner table, pig feed from the feed mill and lots and lots of garden goodies from a local farm. (Good friends hooked us up with the farm discards, what a blessing!)

 We had to transport the pig from the killing area to the butchering area.

This is our friend Jon. We had 8 adults and 17 kids that attended.

Yes, three families and 17 kids, that's so awesome!

Here's a picture of Dusty making the cuts. 

Here is Dusty and Curt.

Curt was the teacher of the day! He walked Jon & Dusty through the process, showed them what to cut, and where to cut. He also brought out his meat grinder so we could make sausage.  

 I'm attempting to clean the pig feet to make gelatin from scratch.

Don't knock the gloves, they make me feel better. :)

 Making roasts, ribs, sausage, chops, tenderloins etc.

 Kathy is the sausage maker!

 Wendy is working on the bacon brine.

Austin and Dusty are packaging up the sausage with the food saver.

Alanah's face says it all, I have no words. 

Noah, Josiah & Thad

Baby Manna was the 2nd to youngest attendee.