We Killed, Skinned + Butchered 2 Pigs (1st Time)

In this video, we are killing 2 pigs, skinning them— that will be our first time skinning— and butchering them, breaking them down into parts. Also our first time. First, we need to kill them quickly and humanely. That's obstacle number 1. 2, I haven't eaten in 21 days. I'm on a water fast, so I've got to pace myself.

Am I shooting it?

You want to?

Yeah, let's I was planning on it.

Heck yeah! We're on our own. How do you guys feel about this? There's something special about just doing something for the first time, feels out of your league, and doing it together as a family. I cannot show this kill on video. We've got a 20-minute video on how we, how we shoot, skin. Mr. Doherty taught us how to skin in and then eviscerate. Totally free, link in the description. Don't go too far that way. His head's— his brain is right back in there. I want to aim like at his butthole. Sit down, sit down. Every chance I get— trajectory is a little low. Get, get a little closer. Aim up towards the butthole. No, you got to get pretty low. Like that? Yeah. Uh, no, your trajectory is a little low. There you go, that's it. Good job, knife it. Heck yeah, bud. The kills went great. Now skinning for our first time. Let's see how it goes. Looks like you guys did a good job skinning. Practice makes perfect, but good job first time by yourself. I mean, you would ideally not have any flesh shown and you would keep— preserve all that fat. There's some fat left on the skin here. You can see that's ideally what you want. This is a good patch. They did as good or better than I can. It's hard to skin a pig. It doesn't skin like a sheep or a cow. The pulley broke. Wouldn't be homesteading without problems. All right, they figure out ways. They just reach through here. Well, this isn't going to be much of a delay if this works. We are new to skinning. You wouldn't want to skin for two reasons. Well, the culinary purposes— the skin would help keep the ham and I guess other roasts moist and cooking, from what I understand. The other reason would really be my reason as a carnivore-ish, animal-based, is the pork rinds, which comes from the pig's skin. Those are like a carnivore's chips. And if you've ever— I mean, try some pork rinds. They're better than corn chips, and you can use them for the same thing. Dip salsa, guacamole, sour cream, melt some cheese, cheese on them, cheese dip. I've even used them as a spaghetti noodle alternative. Yeah, and some carnivores use them for baking. They do pork rind crumbles. They crumble and make it into a flour.

But it's full.

For personal reasons, and for personal reasons, I'm gonna abstain. And the kids don't really care. I think they'd rather cut an hour and a half off the butchering process. What do you guys say? Yeah, give me— not get the pork rinds.

I hate so much on a pig.

Why do you hate it so much?

There's so— there's so much between them.

Would you say this is the hardest part, cutting out the end of the intestines here? Maybe. Piercing it. We're gonna do the other pig. What do you think? Well, we need that blue barrel ready. Will you go start getting that? It's 10:20. What do you think? Uh, you guys are gonna be close to an hour and a half, aren't you? Dump this out and get us about a foot of ice in it. Trying to formulate my thoughts about this. I'm really proud of these guys. I'm in a special spot here, um, and I'm trying to figure out how I made this happen so I can pass it on to young dads because they're pretty much more in charge of this today than I am. They know more about how to skin than I do. They were more hands-on when Luke was here teaching us, and they're doing it. I'm counting on them because I'm fasting and I'm tired, but partly because they want to do it. These are hillbilly coolers. We do have an ice machine. We're going to fill this up because the pigs are going to have to stay cool off till tomorrow. Thankful for that ice machine. Or we'd have to buy ice. What do you guys think? Let's look. I think you did good. Tell me your thoughts about— you might have messed up the cut.

Cutting through the spine, I kind of went to one side.

Hey, it might mess up some of the meat, but you know, these are homestead cuts. What are we gonna have, a less roast, or maybe less pork chops? Oh really? Yeah, it's in the pork chop area. Yeah, right there on the back. I hope you I hope y'all paid attention when he parted the pig.

I hope he showed me everything, but I forgot.

You review the video tonight, I guess. We're documenting us break this down, but like I said, I'm gonna have a video that— I'm giving you a free video that gets you guys this far from keel to right here. What's your plan for getting the pig in there? Move, move this to the pig or move the pig to it? How'd you take that?

How?

What? I think I just pick up the half. Oh, you can carry it? Who's going to hold the other half from falling on the ground? Besides, say we don't have enough ice. I wasn't watching, then we put too much on the bottom. Need to take a rest. Not that fast, you know, just got to be mindful about resting every chance I get. Only 20 minutes. Behind. I bet, I bet, because this will be our second one, it'll go faster. How you feeling about this next shot?

A little bit better, but still nervous.

They also hold their head still when they're laying down. We use the skim milk because a pig will hold its head still when it's drinking, but when it's eating, it goes like this. Nope, she's coming. He is. Gun needs to go a little higher. There you go.

Shoot, I would have killed it, but it moved.

I would get in a different position, like on your knees. All knives on deck, Josiah. Can you do this in, uh, 20 minutes? Never. Break a record. I did that. Thank you. What you got? What are you planning for lunch?

Um, we're gonna have tomato salad, peppers cut up with French onion dip, and we're gonna have potatoes, and then we have buns.

When do those go in? Are they ready?

Uh, about to come in like 10 minutes.

And then we have burgers too.

What about the deluxe toppings?

I had to get those out still.

Tomatoes, onions. Wow, thank you, Lily. Looks great. I am so blessed. Teenagers is where it's at. Teenagers just don't happen to become pleasant teenagers. They've been raised contributing, so it's no shock to them. But boy, they contribute more and more when that's your culture. What a blessing they are. Teenagers don't— contrary to popular opinion, teenagers do not have to be a pain. They do not have to be rebellious. That doesn't need to be your family culture. It doesn't have to be. By the way, I cut up lung, heart, and liver. For the chickens. I'm on my meat-fed chicken kick. All right, take that under our house where it's less prone to predators. Day 2, skinning went great. Now we need to park these things. This is the big project. I'm unsure how it's gonna go. Thankfully we have an Abundance Plus video to help us guide us through, but still, until you've done it and do it there's no confidence, and the only way to get through that is to just get through it and do it. Let's go! It did it, it did it! I just downloaded the instructional video off of Abundance Plus. Heck yes, there it is! All right, let's go! Day 2, how you feeling about breaking down pork? A little nervous. We have, we have never done this ourselves. We've done on-farm kills, dressings, uh scoldings. If this goes as good as the skinning went yesterday, we'll be doing good. But this is very new territory for us. Did it stay cold?

Yeah, I'm more worried about getting it out.

Is it pretty stiff? It's probably stiff. It's almost freezing. We need Josiah. It's not as good as hanging, but it's the— it's the things we have. Do we need Josiah? That would be great.

But he's over there looking for a golf ball.

Why? Josiah! Let's come do this, bro. All right, gird up your loins, grab it out. I'm having to really count on them. I'm 22 days into a fast. Try not to get it on this blue tank. Very good. Good job, Gideon. Way to see that coming. Good job, man. Wow. Okay, wash your hands. Turn it around. He had it around the other, the other way. Let's see how long it takes us to do the first one. Let's stay— let's say we started at 8:55. How's your knife, Henry?

Good.

Okay, are you gonna help cut? There's a tenderloin.

No, I'm trying to get it out.

No, that's not what he said. No, let's go in order. Yeah, just get the fat out. Cool, we can do this, man. Heck yes! What a powerful tool. Teach people to saw them first. I love it when I create products that I use myself, that I need myself. I'm gonna remove the tenderloin before I finish that. So you could remove the tenderloin if you want, and it's its own in the end. It doesn't matter, they're homestead cuts. As long as we remember, down low is slow and slow. Now pie is more drilling. This is actually pretty fun. It's not so bad once you get into it. So I've got about an hour-ish till I need to step away for some business. So I'd really like— hold on, hold on— if I can get him through this, just this one half, they can do the rest. Be careful not to cut into our ham. Now don't hit the metal table. Don't— I would cut the other way maybe. All right, we're cutting in between the 5th and 6th rib. I mean, does it matter, 4th or 5th, 6th or 7th? No.

What happened to taking it to the butcher place?

Well, it's an hour there, an hour back, and it costs $1.30 a pound. This will be 150 pounds each pig, $250-ish. $500 this plus 4 hours in a car and the 70 cents a mile wear and tear on that. We're probably looking at $1,000, and it's fully in our control. We can get the exact cuts we want. That ham's way too big. So how do we break down a ham?

Yeah, that's a lot of food.

Now if I learned anything from cow butchering, we can look for natural seams. We could save the ham, but that's so much. We're gonna have Josiah Cut up that ham. It's probably a 20-pound ham. We only need 5 pounds at a time, so let's keep going, John, on the upper roast. Curve of the spine, cut through the meat with a knife. Everybody's working. Here's our ham. These are hams. We got 3 hams out of that leg. Is this a ham too, Josiah? Now that's a shoulder, right, Jonah? Keep them, keep them separate so we know what they are. We need to trim a lot of fat off of this one. We about done?

What time is it?

Oh, we're working on the shoulder. What's that, Jonah?

I don't know.

You don't know? I'm gonna chop this up.

He said he cuts the ribs off.

Well, then it's ribs.

We've opted to grind the shoulders because this is, this is all the grind we have without it. That leaves us with 2 butts, 3 hams. This will be all bacon.

I could just—

you cut out the ribs, I think. No, easier.

This is so much— you just literally slice along here. He showed me it when we did it, and I don't— I hate the bones for some reason.

All right, well, it will be less storage in our freezer. That's the cool thing about doing it yourself is we can make these decisions. We say, hey, we want more grind because you guys like breakfast sausage more than you like pork roasts. The one half of the pig got us 1, 2, 3, 4, 5— it's gonna get us 10 weeks of roast. Cut this into reasonable pieces and I can feed it to the chickens at a time. Okay, you know what I mean, Jonah? Or we can get— oh yeah, get the— get the grinder, dude. What? Good call. I wasn't so sure about that, but But wow, can I put this in? Boneless pork chops. What do you guys want tonight, tenderloins or pork chops?

Pork chops.

Pork chops. We don't have to bag those, we're gonna just put them in a bowl and save them for tonight. We're all staying busy. It is bagging. Just— oh, what would we do? We get the right fat ratios. Do all this. That's what I was gonna do, but do—

oh, you have to cut that all out. All of that.

Okay, but do a third Do a third fat, two-thirds meat. See what I'm saying? So every one piece of fat you put in, put in two pieces of meat. One fat, maybe two meats. Understand? You just grounded fat like this is pretty good ratio. See that? But if you just did fat, you have ground fat and then you'd have ground. So some of it would be too lean and some would be too fatty. So you gotta mix it. Boys started another one. You're getting way ahead on that, boys. Look how long this takes. I'm gonna roll this real time right here.

I don't think we're gonna at least straighten you guys up for this haul.

How long does this take? Put on the timer. You guys smell that? Take a break in between. I guess we are.

I'm giving a break for one of you to get ahead. Probably let's go to practice. I want to do that.

I bet there's a machine we can do this. This looks like a really good fat to pork ratio though. That's another thing about doing it ourselves. Stop! Why would you do that?

Because I like to flatten them out.

There. It's 11:30.

15. I gotta cut out for my— I got an online summit, guys. We're wrapping up the back end. I'm glad we saved a day for this. I thought we could do 2 pigs in a day. Nope. Well, I guess you could keep going, but bag as you go, okay? I don't think you can. You got soccer, so let's just chill and tomorrow's another day. It's unfortunate we need to pick up the kitchen twice. Can't just knock it all out at once, but that's how it is. Let's not kill ourselves. Is this all the kitchen chicken scraps we got? You're even mopping? Pinch me now. Day 3, how do you guys feel? They've started on their own today. Whoa, you're already to the pork chops, man. Oh, smack that butt, boy.

Smackdown!

It's the butt. Okay, you guys are crushing it. They're coming up and they're doing me.

I don't want to get my hands dirty.

Oh, come on.

Well, I need gloves.

Does anything good come of not getting your hands dirty? Come on, you got to get your hands dirty. You come with us and help. Okay, we'll get you a knife.

Oh, I need it. I need breakfast. I don't want to just come up here and watch.

Get a whole apple. Get a whole apple. That'll get you down there. It's apple season. The local apples are in. What?

I don't want them up here. Wash my hands.

Okay, no, eat the apple first and then start cutting with us. Here, you take your time. Well then, we got to get your knife. It's up here, isn't it?

No.

Okay. I love it when the boys put me to work. You okay getting in? Yeah.

Henry, what you doing?

Okay, get in. I'm gonna put you on this. We like to do enough for 2 meals. We have 1 meal and then we do leftovers. Just how you ground it, you're gonna do the proper fat ratio like you did yesterday? Yeah, yeah, this looks a hair lean, but you got more fat to add to it. Okay, well, we got a pig out. Jonah and insists on using the four-wheeler. He's scared. He's scared of Beefcake. Can't quite blame him. He has a big pig. He will eat you. Oh wow, you got him right back in. That was easy. That was easy. Yeah, here, let's reward him with good things. Coming back, that is. Gideon, I think you're the one who didn't latch that back good because you went in there to spread mulch. Dude, you gotta latch it back, bro. Back to partying. Look at this teamwork, I like it. Good job. We'll season it according to 2 pounds, whether we're gonna do Italian or breakfast sausage. Keep going, just a little bit more. You'll get the hang of it. That's right, it's perfect. 2.08. Fine. Okay, pinch me right now. All 5 of my kids working together, us all working together. That's the dream. That's what it's about. And how cool is that? Our children came together in a meat shop.

It was crazy. I loved that they all worked together and that they were just doing it. Like, yeah, it's, it's like going from literally doing everything.

Yeah.

To then not having to do everything. And it's like—

and then taking over. Let me show you the— I think the 4 stages are breaking down right in front of us. The way to make this happen. Stage 1, you just let them— they just come along and they just sort of play and go from task to task. They're not really helpful, but we're training them. With Gideon, we're at stage 2. I've given him an assignment and let him have autonomy on that assignment. Stage 3 is Lily, and Lily just kind of came down and said, oh, I'll help with the grinding. So she gets to come down, and her autonomy is she gets to pick what she wants to do towards the project. Josiah might be there, he might be in the next stage.

Which is the best stage.

We've arrived. Jonah's there. He tells me what to do and what we're doing. He said we're gonna bag this. We're gonna make this a picnic pan. And we're not gonna part this. And we're gonna have this when we have a big family over. I gotta leave to an appointment, so Jonah, you're gonna be in charge. And the finale this evening. We're gonna cook some fresh pork chops, never even been frozen, was oinking yesterday. How were those pork chops really? They were delicious.

They were really perfect. I love a good pork chop.

It's a happy day. Free resource on how to kill, skin, and eviscerate, link in the description.