After much anxiety on my part, we finally determined that the pigs had grown large enough to be processed. My goal was to have them all weigh at least 200 pounds, and through a mathematical equation that involved hugging the pigs with a measuring tape from my sewing kit, they hit the correct number.
I parked the livestock trailer, which my father made some years ago for his own beef cows out of scrap metal, and is kindly letting me borrow, in the field with them, and began feeding them on the trailer.
They complained about this new development, but eventually hunger won out over suspicion, and they climbed on to eat. I do not have a loading corral, and although I was prepared to build one out of pallets or whatever else I could find if necessary, I knew it would be best for everyone concerned if they went onto the trailer voluntarily.
I have been present for numerous cattle-loading adventures with my father’s half-wild beef cattle, and I wanted to try to spare us all the drama and danger of that. I remember being afraid that the cows might trample and kill my father.
The pigs began eating on the trailer on Saturday, and by Sunday afternoon they were quite comfortable with it. I did have a few technical difficulties when some of the more enterprising pigs discovered that the feed fell through cracks in the floorboards and they crawled under the trailer to eat instead of going onboard the trailer.
We discovered that they also chewed off some of the wires to the trailer lights and helpfully spit out the connector and the wires in the woods. (All of the wires were present, so they didn’t swallow any of them). Mental note for next time is to make sure to keep the wires away from the pigs.
They had an appointment at the processing plant on Tuesday morning, so on Monday evening, after withholding food all day, I threw some cracked corn and some watermelon onto the trailer as an added incentive for everyone to board at once. My daughter helped me slam the doors on the pigs, and they all boarded without a squeal from any of them, and with no harm to us.
We drove to the plant in the (relative) cool of the morning, and the people there calmly unloaded the pigs with plastic boat oars filled with BBs that they shook behind the pigs to encourage them to move. Once inside the plant, within a couple of hours of their arrival, they entered a chamber filled with carbon dioxide, where they lost consciousness and were then slaughtered. I am very thankful that my pigs met the end of life with as little anxiety as possible, and that people attended to their welfare carefully from the day of their birth to the day of their death.
My daughters have some apprehension about eating “our” pigs. I do too, honestly. But, as I tell them, every time they eat bacon they are eating meat from a pig that would be just as personable as our pigs. If he wasn’t raised on pasture, he lived in a building where he never saw the sun, felt the rain, rooted in the soil, or took a mud bath.
I got four pigs so we wouldn’t know which one we were eating, and we never named them. I was also very clear with my children that they were not pets, and that they were going to be dinner.
My three-year-old, understands the process perfectly: “Yeah! They will eat and eat and get big and fat and then, “Boom!” they will turn into bacon. Pretty much. He asked where the bacon was when I returned home with an empty trailer.
I am now begging coolers off of my friends to use to go to pick up the 600 pounds of meat (or more) that should be ready next week. You may come to the farm, conveniently located 3 minutes from Exit 27 on I-77, for your meat.
View our price list by clicking on the “Pork Price List” button at the top of this page. You may also email me at onehubcapfarm@gmail.com. If you are on a mobile device, click on the Menu bar and select “Pork Price List.”