cantankerous pig

[Bird]

I have only participated in one pig slaughter but maybe Hawaiian pigs are just a bit thicker skulled.

I couldn't help but wonder if it wasn't a bit like something we had happen once (and only once, thank goodness). Dad usually killed the animals himself, and I've never seen anyone who was a better shot with a .22 than he was. But he also hired another fellow, who was in the business of butchering animals, at times to do the slaughtering. Neither of them ever failed to drop a beef or hog either one with one shot. However, the pro sent his son to butcher a hog for us once. I guess the boy was new at it. We let the hog out of the pen and put some corn out for him to eat right under the big tree limb we'd later use to lift him with the single tree. Well, the hog moved his head just as the kid pulled the trigger, so the kid shot the hog in the cheek, and then that kid, Dad & I spent a considerable amount of time chasing a squealing hog all over the pasture. It did eventually settle down a bit and we got it back in place for the kid to shoot a second time and that time he got it right.

 

[Egon]

We also used a single tree and rope wire strecher to lift the hog.

 

[Bird]

Egon, I was just thinking that a lot of our members may be too young to know what a single tree (or a double tree for that matter) is. And we called that rope wire stretcher a block & tackle.

 

[sandman2234]

I thought it was snake season the year round in Fla.due to it being warm all year.

LBrown59,
Snakes aren't out all year round. They hybernate a week to ten days during the cold season, then come back out refreshed.(Just kidding)
David from jax

 

[Egon]

Golly Bird, we cannot be that old.

What we called a wire strecher had proper ends for gripping wire and also had a cam lock device on the rope to keep it tight.

For beef we used a double tree with two hooks. Our trees didn't have big enough branches so we had to fasten a pole between two trees.

 

[Bird]

My mistake, Egon. I know what you're talking about now and the wire stretcher is different from the block & tackle we used. And both of the places we lived when I was of an age to observe, and even help a little, with the slaughering of hogs and beef, had a nice big oak tree with a limb strong enough to lift the animals.

 

[Egon]

No mistakes Bird. The wire strecher is just a refined version of a block and tackle. When I get home I'll take a picture of it and post it. It's older than I am for sure.

 

[Renze]

Pigs are nasty animals. When we had to keep all our pigs for a couple of months and ran out of barn space (all farms in our area couldnt move animals due to foot and mouth disease a few years ago) we had to keep them outside in an area enclosed by barn walls on 3 sides, and in the equipment shed.
We couldnt tell my old man enough, to be cautious going into one of the 3 groups of 60 hogs alone without a stick to defend himself. Off course the pig areas were knee-deep mud puddles, so if a person would fall because a boot sucked stuck in the mud, the hogs would curiously check whats on, and slowly starting from watching, sniffing, biting and eventually tear you apart.

My grandfather was a poor farmer, and in those days a dead chicken or a cow's afterbirth meant a conciderable saving on hog feed...


Oh and for butchering pigs, we tried the rear of an axe to aenesthise a pig, but that didnt help much. Most humane is to cut off the throat quickly (cut the blood flow to the brains) and it'll be braindead in a few seconds.
Even for butchering hogs, a FEL is the farmers most versatile helper

 

[Bird]

Pigs are nasty animals. When we had to keep all our pigs for a couple of months and ran out of barn space (all farms in our area couldnt move animals due to foot and mouth disease a few years ago) we had to keep them outside in an area enclosed by barn walls on 3 sides, and in the equipment shed.
We couldnt tell my old man enough, to be cautious going into one of the 3 groups of 60 hogs alone without a stick to defend himself. Off course the pig areas were knee-deep mud puddles, so if a person would fall because a boot sucked stuck in the mud, the hogs would curiously check whats on, and slowly starting from watching, sniffing, biting and eventually tear you apart.

My grandfather was a poor farmer, and in those days a dead chicken or a cow's afterbirth meant a conciderable saving on hog feed...


Oh and for butchering pigs, we tried the rear of an axe to aenesthise a pig, but that didnt help much. Most humane is to cut off the throat quickly (cut the blood flow to the brains) and it'll be braindead in a few seconds.
Even for butchering hogs, a FEL is the farmers most versatile helper

Renze, pigs are only nasty because they usually have to be to stay cool. Given a choice, they'll stay clean but since they cannot perspire, heat will kill them, so wallowing in mud to stay cool becomes a necessity. And they are the only animal I know of that, no matter how many are in a pen, will pick one corner as the "bathroom" and they all use it instead of spreading it all over the entire pen like cattle will do.

And, yes, it used to be common to hit hogs (and cattle) in the head with a heavy hammer to knock them out, then cut their throats. But just to cut the throat quickly . . . well, that reminds me of the story my old rancher friend once told me. He said when he was in high school, his ag teacher told them that was the best way to kill hogs. Now his dad shot them, but when they had a couple to butcher and his dad shot the first one, he told his dad the school teacher had said it was better to just cut their throats. His dad gave him the knife and told him to do it. He said by the time he got that hog killed and both the hog and himself covered in blood, he had decided to never tell his dad how to do anything again.

When I was a kid, country boys sometimes told city boys to not be afraid of hogs because they can't bite you as long as you're standing up. Hogs have pretty rigid necks; can't turn their heads enough to bite anything that's vertical. Actually it was true; there was just one small detail omitted. Even a small pig can hit your legs like a bowling ball and knock you down and then they can chew you up easily. And of course those with tusks can do immeasurable damage without actually biting.

 

[gotrocks]

Ok, I can't resist. Here is my hog (pig) story from High School days.
I was rasing chickens for 4H and a neighbor was using our pig pen(lot) to keep his big black and red hog. I thought I was loosing a few young chickens but could not really get a good count.
Came home from school one day and when I went out to check, one of my young pullets was out of the chicken yard and in the pig pin. That hog was "slidding" along the ground over rocks stalking my chcken that was innocently scratching/pecking away for something to eat. I grabbed a rock about baseball size and popped that hog right in the side but it did not faze him. He grabbed my chick and ate feathers and all............
I'll tryto keep this short but here is the rest of the hog story. The day came to butcher the hog, my step-dad had a S&W 5 shot revolver. The neighbor ask to use it to kill the hog. They put a little feed in the trough and when black&red came up they shot him in the head, he gave a little grunt and kept on eating... after 4 more shots in the head he did leave the trough and run across the pen. The butcher said go get me an axe. He got into the pen and finally on the third solid lick to the head the pig lost his footing, but was still trying to get up. Then the butcher took a long knife and cut the throat. Not a pleasant sight.
To this day I still wonder what the "death certificate" would show as the cause of death. I think he bled to death. End of story.

Please pass the bacon.

 

[Renze]

Bird, about pigs being nasty, i meant that they are... well... they dont poop in their bedding area, but i meant that they will start eating you if you dont move....

In that big group of hogs, if one would cough (pneumonia) the others would stop with their ground sniffing and look in its direction. if it cough'd again, they would walk towards it and after a while you'd find them all biting into that one hog.

If you removed it from the pen and gave it some penicilin and a day or 3 to recover in the sick bay, it would be happy to go back in the big pen with 60 other animals, but if not, it would be bitten to death by its pal's

 

[Bird]

Renze, I'll take your word for it. I've heard of hogs killing and eating other animals, killing each other, etc. enough that I'm sure it's true. As a kid, I raised registered Berkshire hogs for the 4H club and I guess my hogs were just too gentle, and well fed. I'd heard that hogs would kill and eat snakes, so I once caught a 4' snake and put it in the pen with my uncle's hogs and they just ignored it. And my own pigs were kept in a large enough pen that they were never crowded. In fact, our chickens frequently got into the pen to eat some of the grain I put out for the hogs and we never had a hog attack a chicken. I did once make a bad mistake myself when I was about 12 years old. I had a sow with a new litter of pigs that were only a day or two old and she was gentle enough that I could get under the shed with her and play with the little ones. However, I put her feed out in a trough in the middle of the pen, and immediately had a bunch of chickens come for a share and that day I decided I didn't want the chickens to get any of it, so I got a stick and I was running circles around the old sow and the feed trough yelling and waving the stick to scare off the chickens while she ate. Not a very bright thing to do. It obviously made her nervous and she whirled around and knocked me down. Since I was already running, I had a little momentum, rolled, came up on my feet running, and barely beat her to the fence. That fence was low enough I was accustomed to running and jumping over it, but I was off stride and didn't have time to make any corrections that day. I didn't even try to jump; just ran full tilt into the fence, which hit me about waist high, and I flipped over and hit the ground on the other side so hard it knocked the wind out of me. You can bet I was very cautious around that sow for a couple of days.

 

[jimmysisson]

Bird THAT is a great hog story! Thanks!
Jim

 

[Farwell]

When I was in my very early teens my family lived on a farm in Michigan. We had approximately 200 pigs and never had any problem with any of them because we knew our limitations and never crossed them. We had a boar that could be a problem and if we had to feed him or deal with him in any way we were able to isolate him from us so we could do what needed to be done. I would use a 2 foot by 2 foot piece of plywood with a hand hold cut in it if we needed to get near any of the sows that were a little feisty.
I do not know why it happened but we let our young boars get a couple weeks older than we normally did before castration time. Talk about some good exercise.
I never thought of our pigs as being nasty. They were always well fed and treated well. We did not slaughter our own pigs, we would send them out to a butcher.
David B

 

[Bird]

David, when I was a kid in the 4H, pigs in the show ring at the fair and stock shows would occasionally get into fights. The men usually told the kids to not get between them because you could get hurt, but the grown men would usually break up the fights, most commonly by kicking them apart. Now many many years later, at the State Fair of Texas in Dallas, I noticed them using plywood as you mentioned. I think what they were using was 2' x 4' with two hand holds cut in them. Sure made me wonder why no one was smart enough to think of that when we were kids.

 

[Egon]

Farwell, I can still hear the squealing!

 

[LBrown59]

Farwell, I can still hear the squealing!

So Can I

 

[Farwell]

Bird,
I was in the 4H for about 4 years and really enjoyed it. One year I entered a sow in the local county fair. Neither one of us had any experience in showman ship. The sow went where she wanted and I didn't have any idea on how to guide her. I ended up with a red ribbon and was told that if the sow was trained we would have had at least a blue ribbon.

Egon,
The sound of castrating pigs is a sound one will never forget. There is no sound like it in the world unless it was one of us.
David B

 

[Bird]

One year I entered a sow in the local county fair. Neither one of us had any experience in showman ship.

David, I sure understand that. I was very fortunate in being the exact opposite. Of course my Dad and Granddad helped a great deal, we got to be friends with the county extension agent at the time, and the first hog I showed was raised as a pet. In fact, I could ride him and guide him with a yardstick. So he won the blue ribbon for the Berkshire heavy weight class and I won the showmanship ribbon (still have it). There was just one problem. He was a barrow, so of course was sold at auction after the show, and it was really tough to hold back the tears when I walked away from him that night.

 

[Egon]

Pigs do have personalities and one can sure get attached.