Hog or goat on the farm

Hog, in outline

A poorly shot hog is dangerous. If you have never done this, bring someone who has, or take the animal to a locker while lockers still exist.

Cutting a hog is shoulders, loins, belly (bacon), hams, jowls, and trim for sausage. Salt the bellies and hams the same week — see Curing.

1. 1.Withhold feed overnight. Water ok. Work at first light on a 40°F day.
2. 2.A single well-placed shot (or a captive bolt if you have one) to the brain, then bleed at once by sticking the midline just in front of the breastbone into the heart vessels. Blood for pudding if you want it, caught clean.
3. 3.Scald in a drum of 145–150°F water, or skin if you have no scald setup. Scrape hair with a bell scraper or a dull knife toward the head.
4. 4.Hang, open, catch the viscera in a clean tub. Save leaf lard, caul, heart, liver if sound. Empty the gut away from the well.
5. 5.Split the carcass down the backbone with a saw. Hang overnight just above freezing if you can, then cut.

Goat or sheep

Skin, don’t scald. Hang by the hind legs, fist the pelt off, keep hair off the meat. The rest is a small deer: shoulders, rack, loins, legs. Goat wants low-and-slow or a curry/stew. Young wethers can roast.