Comments on: Thoughts on raising your own food

By: allena

allena — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 21:30:35 +0000

Jerome,

It is also much easier on the animal to be killed at home. They will get more stressed and frightened from being hauled than being killed quickly at thier own dinner bowl. Also everyone should understand that this sort of thing happens in the slaughter houses and processers ALL THE TIME.

By the time you send it off, you end up paying the same as what you do to buy the pork, and often around here you get an old stringy animal back. They sell your wonderful fresh animal as a gourmet meat to restaurants. It’s annoying but very common…

BUT you can have a fella come over and off your pig, skin and gut it for about $30. I have considered it…

By: Beau

Beau — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 20:47:39 +0000

Yeah, they actually have videos of butchering on YouTube. Including the killing part. Some of that stuff I found kind of objectionable because it was just a video of people killing an animal (for butchering). But it wasn’t like it was explanatory or anything. It was like they just filmed it for the sake of watching an animal die. Other videos are more instructional…along the lines of “to do this effectively and humanely, first shoot here, then quickly cut here.”

By: jerome

jerome — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 19:35:24 +0000

oh and do they have the videos on you tube?? I mean - what made you think - hmm let me look for slaughtering pig videos….. not that I doubt you - and I am sure they have all the deer cleaning videos, etc. on line…..

By: jerome

jerome — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 19:32:49 +0000

I just couldn’t do the whole slaughter thing - I used to trim and cut meat in high school - but the actual butcher and remove stuff…. ughh…. could not bring myself to do that at all!

By: Beau

Beau — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 14:33:31 +0000

Well, Mike - I agree. Last year WAS a fiasco, but that was one of those situations that nobody (not even the very experienced person that was helping me) fore-saw. Who would have thought a pig could jump a fence? This year, I had a much tighter and taller enclosure. This year was all me. I just didn’t make a clean kill. For the second pig this year, I reviewed the process online (including pictures and videos) to make sure I knew exactly what to do - consequently things went better.

Jerome - There’s a couple of reasons I pay to have them processed. The first is I have a bias against meat processors. Several years ago, we raised a couple of steers and took them to get butchered. These steers were corn feed for 6-8 weeks before butchering. We didn’t get the same beef back that we brought in. Mentally, I now classify meat processors with lawyers and mechanics (probably unfair, but your experiences shape your opinions, eh?). The other reason is like you said. Time v. Money. Time I have, or at least I have more time than money!

Anyhow, I don’t mean to sound curt above. Just sharing experiences here on the ol’ blog. Good ones and bad sometimes. Maybe you guys should bring your families down for a BBQ? I’ll provide the pork ;)

By: MO'B

MO'B — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 13:05:37 +0000

Ouch - after last years (arguable) fiasco it happened again?

Aw man - what a pain! Sorry to hear that!

By: jerome

jerome — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 12:30:00 +0000

Two Words: MEAT LOCKER. Why not have them process your animals for you?? I would thiink the time v money would make it more likely for you to enjoy the raising without the slaughter???

Shannon and I were talking about this. Shannon and I both know folks who work with seed/corn/animals/feed and the price of meat and all other raised food will be going up a lot in the next year or so so raising food yourself is gonna be IMPORTANT!!!