Guiding A Newbie in BUTCHERING PIGS

That's a perfect position right there. You ever killed a pig?

No.

You ever butchered a pig?

No.

It's your first time?

It is.

We're going to teach you everything you need to know for on-farm harvest. We're going to take it from your perspective. Sound good? Can you wear the GoPro? Sure. Okay, I'll do one as an example and then you'll do the next one. I say shooting, we'll probably shoot them both. There's an X between the ears and the eyes. You hit right there. If we're shooting up high like this, we're gonna have to make sure we lean more up. You don't want to shoot get down into the nasal cavity. I'm probably gonna get down low through that X towards the anus at that angle, and then they drop and we stick them with a knife. Just how are you gonna stick them?

Well, Iggy, I did watch the master class.

You did?

I did my homework.

So I do— you watch the master class in Abundance Plus, which by the way, you're not going to be able to see this for those who are watching on YouTube. This is going to be graphic. We're gonna have to take that part out. But you can watch this. It's under the same title as this YouTube video, Inside Abundance Plus. You can also watch the masterclass that he's talking about. Was that with Brandon Sheard?

It was.

And how'd you find it?

Uh, I just scrolled down and it was right there.

It was in the masterclass. Okay, we're gonna get them some milk. That'll help keep their head steady. I asked Sean if you ever seen that handy tool, that D-ring. He said you don't see too many of those in hunting and Beach, California. What's your impression so far?

That was pretty easy. It seems like the focus is to really slow down and get the shot right, and if you do that part right, subsequently it can, it can go good.

It can happen that you miss. Yeah. And the pig just running around squealing.

Have you ever gone for a second shot?

I've never missed, but I've certainly seen it. Look at that, Izzy. Yeah, they do not care. If you and I were eating lunch, somebody shot me in the head. In front of you.

Are you gonna go on eating? I mean, sure, depends on how hungry. Yeah, what was the meal?

Where we're eating biscuits and gravy? Yeah, we're like 178. 150 for 4 minutes is the benchmark. 178, maybe we try it a minute and a half and see what it's like. 2 minutes. We're not tall enough. Is that as high as it'll go? Problem is he's not able to lift that high enough, so drop it down and then we'll raise it up. It's not so high to clear it, but I think we can shimmy it over. Just be moving the pig around just to put the water everywhere, because water right now is not getting in the side of it. Hey, Pyro, will you get me some scrapes?

Keep coming. All right, that's good, that's good.

Oh yeah. Yeah, look at that. I mean, you could do this with a knife, but we have this handy meat hook. Mhm.

Pull off our nail.

Now we're shaving it.

It's going good. Beginner's luck, right?

I know. I like having you here. That was a good scald. We only got a little bit left on the rear end. You want to call that a sign? I call it.

Sure, let's flip it over.

Iggy says don't do it too good or he's going to expect it from me every time. That hit you in the head. Told you this worked better on camera.

I know, I know, you're just begging for the action shot. Can't wait for the slow motion editing on that one.

Now it's just a challenge.

There it is, there it is.

Good job.

We have to flip it again.

I guess we'll flip them down there. It's one of those rusty mistakes, is we should have started like that and then we only had to flip it once. I say rusty because you butcher pigs once, maybe twice a year, you forget all the little workflow nuances, but you still got the job done.

We're there.

Now for the fun part.

What is the fun part?

You don't want to hit those intestines. This is the trickiest part. Zip it tight. I'm just gonna zip it at first.

Whoops, I got it.

Now just chase the intestines up.

Ah, got it.

This is the romantic way. I underestimated the size of these guys. I think I let them go a month too long. They're so fatty. That means I lost efficiency in my feed. Okay. All right, baby, we can do this. Yeah, see?

Yep.

In lieu of not having our cool room, we got to keep this cool. That took us 3 hours. About halfway full. I got it going yesterday just in time.

Man, that thing's handy.

Hey, little man, are you gonna come butcher the next pig with us? Looks like Tube Man's still doing his job on the sea monsters. We gotta change Henry and then we can go back at it. You ready to go shoot a pig? People often ask me, how do you get your kids used to butchering? Well, that's all they've ever known. This kid's already seen them all be slaughtered. The black raspberries are in. This is gonna be the only breakfast I get. Stay with Gideon, okay? You can see from here, but you're gonna be safe. Just how you gonna shoot this one? Let me give him a little, and you can come over here and act like you're gonna do it, okay? That's pointing a little too much down. I'm pointing a little more towards up. He's on to us. You're not hungry. He's going after that grain. He's at all-you-can-eat grain.

Take the grain out.

Yeah, you can do it.

Okay, sorry. What happened?

Ow.

All right, Jonah, bring the track loader up. Got a good job for Jonah. We're at 150 this time, which is actually ideal. My experience is going to take 4 minutes, but we are going to check it every 90 seconds. My guess was that was 150 at 2 minutes. This is what a scald's supposed to look like.

We finally got it right now.

A good scrape. Just look at that, it like peels off. That's crazy.

There isn't a thing of wind at all.

Sailboat's hard to do without wind. Pin something!

Papa, tell her not to splash us!

What's your impression so far?

My impression?

Easier or harder than you thought?

Easier. Biggest thing was the anticipation before doing it, not, you know, not knowing and not having the experience.

Do you feel like the master class prepped you for this?

The master class prepped me for, you know, definitely set me up for success and kind of You know, some of the things, it let me focus on what I needed to do in the moment. I didn't have to, you know, I didn't have to overthink.

I noticed you retained a lot of the information. I think you knew more about it than I did.

I think learning a lot of those things and having that information, again, it was the— it's the unknown and lack of experience that, you know, creates the anxiety or, you know, creates the stress. So, um, because once you're doing it, you have to focus on, you know, there's not a whole lot, a whole lot of time to sit there, you know, especially like doing the poke. It was, you know, I can't overthink it because I need to get in there and get it done.

Yeah, at some point people got to stop learning, they got to start doing. Agreed. Just emptied it with a bucket, getting the remainder out. How's it going over here?

I think I'm doing all right.

Looks like it.

Nothing's green, so you've got the anus tied off. Got it tied off, that's good.

Now I'm just scoring the front side, just went around the vent until he could tie this up without hitting the intestines.

Not straight down, not at an angle, but it's slightly—

yeah. Now you're unzipping the front, so to speak. He had his master class going because I was up there watching that. Yeah, you got to download it. You can download it in the app. Ah yeah, you lost the internet here. Yeah, that's your country Wi-Fi. Download it before you go. That's a good call.

It was funny seeing him do it, and then I was like, wait, no, he's standing right— this is kind of weird.

Oh yeah, watching the master class as the master himself does it right here.

So this point I'm going until I get to that soft, that very soft layer, right? So you still have a couple layers to go.

Oh yeah.

All right, I know I'm in, uh, so-called gut town, so I want to make sure that I'm not—

that's why we don't poke, we just zip. Going around the pizzle. Fun way to say penis. That's working out nice. It's kept its ice. Now it's an hour transport. Chicks seem old enough to survive on their own now. Too big for crows. Why?

Digging right into that compost.

Yeah, man, they love it. Throw that weeds in there. Look at how well your cauliflower is doing. I know. This is a terrible weed.

No, it's not.

That's a—

that's a flower. These are—

jerk it.

These are—

I'm glad you caught me. I was about to yank it up.

This one here?

Yeah, that's a weed. Iggy, for a side hustle, grows plant starts. Did you sell any this year?

Just to y'all.

Just to us, which we traded. Lessons in pig butchery. Yep, for plant starts. What you got for us today?

Uh, I brought some lettuce, which I put some in here already, and then we've got green and red cabbage. I've got some chamomile. These here are Brussels sprouts. Over here, Justin's more excited about the squash.

I like the Squash, the low-carb fruit.

Acorn, butternut, zucchini.

I'm— I love all that, the— all those, those are all great low-carb fruits.

And some basil and dill for Rebecca.

I'm excited about that. We got a bed ready to go. This soil is a little bit low. See that line right there? I like to get up to that mark on these raised beds. Looks so good. Raised beds is one of those things I held off on for a long time, just planting the ground. Well, we kept getting flooded here because we're at the bottom of the valley, and the beautiful one's precious tomatoes were getting got. So I bit the bullet and built her some raised beds, and I'm like, I built raised beds in every front yard. Look at those chickens getting in there. They find life in there.

They're eating something.

It's 4 acorn and 4 butternut squash.

So let's do it. Look how easy this is to plant. Boom, done. Boom, done. Don't even need a tool. I don't even have to squat. What's that tray?

It's the wind strip trays from Never Sink Farm. And so it has a lot more— it's got the larger holes in the bottom so it's easier to push out, and it's got a lot more slits here to air prune the roots. I mean Look at the roots on— I mean, that's, that's a nice healthy, healthy root system right there. Yeah, these are good in there.

They're sturdy. Some basil and dill right here along the edge. Sure. Look who's out back, and look who's helping you. Yep, he's got to do it.

He does.

He's at that stage.

Yep. These tomatoes are going to be planted real nice and deep. I like it.

What happened to the pigs this morning? Retaining information. I was hoping he would show the gun noise, but Al's fine.

And then the— and the pig, what'd the pig do? Did it go like this? Did it go—

Jonah!

Even Jonah came out. He loves gardening.

I was just thinking how we could use the machine for this.

He's gonna have a machine garden. He'll have it to where the tracks can go down the aisle. Higgy, that was a good trade.

Heck yeah.

You feel like you can butcher your own pigs now?

I do, I do. Now I just gotta get the, the gambrel and get Jonah to, uh, weld me a barrel stand.

Yeah, there you go. And we've got our garden, Rebecca. I think all these are your plant starts except for the volunteers.

I didn't start anything.

So good.

You had a couple peas come up in there.

If it weren't for you, we wouldn't have a garden this year because of the remodel. I know, which Becky has gotten her some windows today. 55, 56 inches tall.

You're getting windows 54 inches along the outer wall.

That's magnificent.

All of them are going to be 54.

Let in that southern sun, baby.

Except the kitchen window is going to be a little bit smaller so that I have backsplash.

I cannot wait for folks to see what you have planned.

Me too.

When's that gonna start? I don't know. It's just 4-week standstill.

Don't ask me these questions.

Questions.

I don't know.

All right, y'all, I'll send you all a message. Thanks.

Okay, see you, bud. Rebecca's got plans for this place.

I do.

What is it? So boys, this might be a track loader job, excavator job.

I want this to be more rocks up to that wall.

Oh yeah, so that it's higher.

And then I want to put more dirt in here.

Yep.

So it's like flat, you know?

Yeah.

And then here I wanted to build a deck.

Oh, with railing, of course, with a railing. That'd be neat. So no garden right here, and then we could come and sit.

And then I can have— I was gonna get a couple like 24-inch raised beds that are metal and just put them on.

Oh, that'd be cool.

So there's like some—

I can grow like my herbs and flowers because right now this just gets abandoned, doesn't it?

We could sit in the garden, it would be so nice.

And it's like today, 60-something degrees.

It's 65 degrees on June 7th.

That's why we like calling Western North Carolina home.

I don't like it.

Well, the haze is not from the weather. The haze— and maybe that's why it's so cool— but the haze is from the fires in Canada. Yeah, which is so sad because they're burning to the ground and We got haze.

What do you got? Flowers? Oh, you're gonna give it to the chickens? It's nice of you.

I'm thinking if we just did like a skinny, like a, like a shorter bed this way, all the way down, and then these were along just the one long row, we would have so much more growing space.

Hmm, yeah, you can almost do two.

So when we redo this, when we redo this We'll do that.

That woman doesn't stop with her visions.

Well, I'm saying you don't stop with your visions.

Why do I have to stop with mine?