About
Because of COVID-19, animals were getting euthanized and going to waste at an alarming rate. A farmer friend offered up some pigs that would otherwise be killed and thrown into a pit to rot, so we took advantage of the situation and a few of us picked up several live animals. We elected to take just one knowing we would have to go from butcher to packing as a first time through the process. The pigs came from a friend of a friends farm in Iowa and were picked up as he passed through from his home in Wisconsin on his way to Colorado, stopping at our work in Centennial. He then distributed the animals in Colorado, a few went to Conifer and a few more down to Franktown (where I was involved). I took some pictures along the way to photo document the experience. We got at whole bunch of port at the end, but the process and learning were likely more valuable for the whole family.
We also built a walk in meat locker in an old railroad radio communications tower building on his property (there used to be a generator and equipment in the cinderblock building that serviced the radio tower we knocked down earlier that year, but it was since removed). We cleaned it out and put two layers of 2″ insulation on all 6 surfaces. An airconditioner hole was cut and a digital thermometer hung. We hung the pig halves in this meat locker for about a week to age and it worked quite well.
What I Learned
- Processing your own food is not easy and can be unpleasant
- We are blessed with a grocery store, but have become disconnected from the process
- COVID really disrupted supply and demand cycles to the point where very valuable things (like food and animals) were more costly to keep alive or process than to just kill and mass burry them.
- Butchers and packaging companies were so backed up they couldn’t keep up with supply because they didn’t have workers during the shutdown
- Pigs are like dogs and have personality
- Pigs die hard – we obviously wanted to be as humane as possible, but pigs are hearty. After hearing of some drama with the pigs in Conifer, we chose to stun the pigs with a single .22 shot between the eyes and a deep slit to the throat. This worked, and I can’t think of a better way, but it was still pretty brutal
- Pigs like milk in a bowl and this is a good way to distract them for the stun
- If you have skid steer, you can tie one end of the pigs skin to the an anchor in the concrete and remove the skin in one go
- Our dogs like the smoked pig ears
- I learned the very basics of butchering and the different cuts of meat from the pig
- I learned a lot about sausage making but still find it delicious
- I learned that the value of the bacon I buy at the store is pretty good – it takes a lot of work to raise, feed, transport, slaughter and butcher the animal and then the pig belly needs to be cut, cured and then packaged and transported again before becoming bacon on the shelves in the store (and the energy to refrigerate it the whole time)