Post by tsyork on Jan 26, 2008 16:58:17 GMT -5
Well the long awaited day is upon us, and they have no idea! The only bad part is two things: First, these pigs are WILD!!! I don't mean as in feral, but Lord do have mercy, these pigs are crazy. They are pretty well near dang acrobats, so I have no earthly clue as to how I'm going to load them; they are in a barn stall now, so I know as soon as I open it, here they go! Secondly, they did not grow nearly as much as they should have. I've had the butcher date set for a while because I was sure they would be big as barns by now, but they aren't. I really can't change my slaughter date this late. Plus, if I were to change it, it would be forever before I could get another date. I guess I'll just suck it up, deal with it, and count my losses. Two things I do know are one, I'll be the laughing stock when I pull up with these two pigs at the processors tomorrow (I told the lady at the slaughter house they were on the small side and she asked, "are they potbellies?" talk about pouring salt into a wound) and number two, I'm going to have the worlds smallest pork chops and tenderloin anyone has ever laid eyes on.
Oh well... Pray I get them loaded OK!
UPDATE #2
2 Hogs equals both tenderloin and PC's.
THEY'RE LOADED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And I must say I have never in my life had so many problems. A friend of mine and I had the pigs together; we had four altogether. They were in a barn stall that had accessibility from the drive thru in the middle of the barn. The trailer was so big I couldn't get it turned sideways into the door. What made the problem even worse was he wasn't taking his, so trying to get two out the door where the total four was; that was a cluster in itself. My dad, my wife, and a friend helped. We ended up, for lack of a better word, hogtying these devils. We put a knoose around their neck and tried to drag themout of the stall. Both my dad's and my hands are ripped to shreds; the pigs went CRAZY. We finally got both loaded, which took roughly 45-min to an hour. but it was a solid hour of extreme, tenseful, manual labor I have ever done, and I'm not skeered to work.
So what I've learned from this whole experience?
??
1. Pig wrangling is not going to be my next sought after career.
2. There's not enough Clorox to get the manure scent off of your hands after
wrestling two pigs for an hour.
3. Loading pigs from a barn stall will either cause you to cuss, or will make
write down ugly words on a piece of paper and ask someone else to read
them off.
4. I will never raise hogs in confinement like that again. It's PASTURE all
the way baby!!!!
5. I don't think pork chops, tenderloin, sausage, ham, ribs and whatever else
we eat from those will ever taste as good as those two DEVILS will!!!
UPDATE #3
We'll, we left out early this morning with Satan and Lucifer to the processors. We arrived there a little after eight, and after telling them my preferred cuts and getting the hang tags ready, they were ready for me to back them up to the chute and unload them. I was so glad to get rid of those two DEVILS. Well I back up, and close the slaughter house gates around the trailer. The stupid things would NOT come out, so I had to get up in the trailer and flush them out; that didnt work either; they were lunging at me as I tried to get them off. Finally one of them jumped down, but she decided that she wasn't about to walk through the catwalk of death, so she lunged at the slaughter gate, knocked it open enough that she jumped up and through it and the trailer. We chased that pig for a long, long time. After five attempts we finally got her back into the slaughter gates and got her ran down the catwalk. The other one WOULD NOT budge off that trailer; I guess he know what was coming. Two of the slaughter house employees had to wrestle him out of the trailer.
Oh, you know I said in a previous post that working with these two hogs would either cause you to curse or write it down and let someone else read it off??? We'll I didn't even have to write it down for the fellow at the processors this morning. One of the hands at the slaugter house said, them are some crazy d**** pigs I tell you.
Thank goodness they are at the processor tucked away (Lord I pray they are) in their pen, awaiting their graduation into freezer heaven.
I can't wait to taste the tenderloin!
Oh well... Pray I get them loaded OK!
UPDATE #2
2 Hogs equals both tenderloin and PC's.
THEY'RE LOADED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And I must say I have never in my life had so many problems. A friend of mine and I had the pigs together; we had four altogether. They were in a barn stall that had accessibility from the drive thru in the middle of the barn. The trailer was so big I couldn't get it turned sideways into the door. What made the problem even worse was he wasn't taking his, so trying to get two out the door where the total four was; that was a cluster in itself. My dad, my wife, and a friend helped. We ended up, for lack of a better word, hogtying these devils. We put a knoose around their neck and tried to drag themout of the stall. Both my dad's and my hands are ripped to shreds; the pigs went CRAZY. We finally got both loaded, which took roughly 45-min to an hour. but it was a solid hour of extreme, tenseful, manual labor I have ever done, and I'm not skeered to work.
So what I've learned from this whole experience?
??1. Pig wrangling is not going to be my next sought after career.
2. There's not enough Clorox to get the manure scent off of your hands after
wrestling two pigs for an hour.
3. Loading pigs from a barn stall will either cause you to cuss, or will make
write down ugly words on a piece of paper and ask someone else to read
them off.
4. I will never raise hogs in confinement like that again. It's PASTURE all
the way baby!!!!
5. I don't think pork chops, tenderloin, sausage, ham, ribs and whatever else
we eat from those will ever taste as good as those two DEVILS will!!!
UPDATE #3
We'll, we left out early this morning with Satan and Lucifer to the processors. We arrived there a little after eight, and after telling them my preferred cuts and getting the hang tags ready, they were ready for me to back them up to the chute and unload them. I was so glad to get rid of those two DEVILS. Well I back up, and close the slaughter house gates around the trailer. The stupid things would NOT come out, so I had to get up in the trailer and flush them out; that didnt work either; they were lunging at me as I tried to get them off. Finally one of them jumped down, but she decided that she wasn't about to walk through the catwalk of death, so she lunged at the slaughter gate, knocked it open enough that she jumped up and through it and the trailer. We chased that pig for a long, long time. After five attempts we finally got her back into the slaughter gates and got her ran down the catwalk. The other one WOULD NOT budge off that trailer; I guess he know what was coming. Two of the slaughter house employees had to wrestle him out of the trailer.
Oh, you know I said in a previous post that working with these two hogs would either cause you to curse or write it down and let someone else read it off??? We'll I didn't even have to write it down for the fellow at the processors this morning. One of the hands at the slaugter house said, them are some crazy d**** pigs I tell you.
Thank goodness they are at the processor tucked away (Lord I pray they are) in their pen, awaiting their graduation into freezer heaven.
I can't wait to taste the tenderloin!
