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Dec 07 - Sorry Boy's, It's Time To Meet The Freezer For some, December marks the countdown to Christmas. They say that the first weekend in December is when the world goes mad buying Christmas presents - for us, the first weekend means getting ready for the pig slaughter.
Arrangements had been made and Jerard & his helper arrived with his tractor and tools.
The plan was to do exactly the same as last year - entice Ronnie & Reggie out of their enclosure one at a time with a bucket of food. Then, tie their back leg to the tractor followed by a swift blow to the head.
Whether it was because these breeds of pig had thicker skulls or that Jerards helper had less strength we don't know - but, tragically, the blow with the sledgehammer didn't kill them first time.
They made as much noise then as they did when we first picked them up - except they were 8 times bigger! The pig's distress was horrible and affected everyone. From what should have been a joyous occassion, the day was tainted and a lot more sombre.
In what had last year taken minutes, this year it seemed to take forever for the boys to die.
Given the year of setbacks and disappointments both from livestock, the veggie plot and life in general, we were not ready for more bad news - but that's exactly what we got!
Given that in 2006 (our first year keeping pigs), we achieved a healthy and tasty bounty of meat, we were honestly expecting more of the same this year - if not, something even better given the rare breeds.
WRONG!!!
"Shock" does not even begin to describe how we felt when the butcher showed us the 5 inches (we kid you not!) of fat surrounding the pig - fat bastards!!!
It had to be cut off, totally unusable and thrown away.
Given the proportion of meat in 2006 and working 'til the early hours of the morning bagging and freezing, we had reigned in some help this year with our trusted friends Dale & Andrew and Gilly & Geoff. How embarrassing - there was hardly enough work for 2 people!
It was a huge disappointment, especially on top of everything else that happened. It wasn't just the loss of meat, it was the cost - the piglets had cost half as much again as "normal" piglets, the cost of feed was significantly higher this year and we got so little meat.
In 2006 we reaped 140kg of meat from each pig - this year, we had 117kg from both pigs together!!!
We were way out of pocket this year as the cost per kilo was well in excess of €6.
Plus, the lack of other livestock means that we are not totally convinced that we've got enough meat to last until the 2008 slaughter season.
We were devastated!!! View The Blog Read All Pig Stories |
