Culling for food on the farm - Epsiode 22
Good morning patrons
The reality of raising animals for your food is that sooner or later the time must come to kill them. For me, once the deed was done, it felt important to have a moment to remember the little pig, Chipolata, that we raised over the last 5 months on the farm. Despite being a bit cagey, she was a cute and happy little pig with attitude who'd sprint up to us at the first sign of food. She never fully trusted us (for good reason), she didn't like pats or belly rubs and as the runt of the four, we had decided not to breed her, so it made a lot of sense to cull her that day.
Join us as we process and break down the carcass this week and prepare our very own salumi and other treats for the fridge, freezer and hanging chamber.
We are expecting a new arrival on the Ranch next week. A local free range pig farmer has offered us his Wessex Saddle Back boar on trial (what a legend!) for our girls. He is very good looking and we'll share with you some pictures once he's arrived. I'm excited to see if the girls approve!
As always we hope this post finds you and your loved ones well.
With gratitude
Pascale and Troy
The reality of self sufficiency. Culling for food on the farm - Free Range Homestead Ep 22 (YouTube)
Comments (17)
Hit the wrong button. A lot of slang, expressions and idioms in our speech. When my Ecuadorian friends apologize for not speaking good English I always respond with no problem, neither do I."
My wife and I originally are from rural East Texas so we have a t
Hey guys. I haven't commented in a while because I have been up to my ass in alligators. We are coming into our rainy season in Ecuador which means getting the garden ready. I have been watching the videos. I raised and slaughtered our first pigs this year. I'm pretty much self taught on everything I do so before slaughtering my first pig I watched eleventy gazillion YouTube videos. Maybe it is because I have been through the process once but I swear your video was about the clearest and concise how to of any I watched. So many of these people if they can't dazzle you with their brilliance they baffle you with their bullshit. Being an animal lover I thought I might struggle a little emotionally like Pascal did. I was lucky in that my pigs were pretty much pushy assholes so when the time came it was like, OK bucko you are about to get an attitude adjustment. The meat has been incredible and my wife and I never flinch while eating it.
"Up to my ass in alligators". You sure lead in with a bang Ed! Thanks for that great start to my morning and also the observation on our episode. We do try to document our activities with no scripting so that it comes across as natural. As you say, the meat really is incredible and makes up for the experience of killing one of the animals in our care. The funny thing is sometimes we have grown such a nice plant in the garden it seems a shame to pull it too!
HDPE is a great product. Some years ago I built a big work table for the animal care staff here at the wildlife center. The top is a 9 foot by 5 foot sheet of HDPE. (less 3 sinks). If we were ever "inspected" by the Federal authorities and the top was a melamine sheet we could fail the inspection for even a single cut into the surface. HDPE has built in anti-microbial properties and I am told that the surface has to be seriously cut up to harbour much antimicrobial life. Just in case, I saved the sink cutouts and have insisted that the staff and volunteers not cut on the main surface.
Not only that but a judicial hit with a gas flame works to restore mist small cuts and a large cut can be ground out and a sliver welded in quite easily. The sailing has been put on hold but the HDPE love affair continues!
Another outstanding video! AS at its best! ;) Thanks!
Where do you get the penicillin mould? Is it in powder or liquid form?
It is sourced from a curing supply store as a powder to mix with water. Anywhere that supplies nitrate cures should have a penicillin culture.
Thoroughly enjoyed this episode guys, as usual learnt a heap. Heidi was very weepy with Pascale too. Love seeing your reuse ethos, i spot it everywhere. 👌 👍 Oh update, the lettuce isn't rdy to be smoked but the spinach worked a treat cold smoked and into a soup. Thanks for the idea 💡 😀
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Thank you both for this beautiful vid. Very sad start but you showed your respect and care for your animals. I learn so much just watching your vids. Hope the curing goes well.
The strong emotion surrounding the actual slaughter works to make us want to make the most from the carcass. Any waste seems very disrespectful.
Another great episode. Really enjoying following along as you build up your farm. Matt Evans did a few episodes of Gourmet Farmer dealing with processing his pigs and there was one or two where they were trying to use as much of the pig as possible inc heart, lungs etc. (SBS on-demand)
The lungs turned out to be very good ingredients for terrine, which will be coming later. So far, the only bit we haven't used that could be, is the stomach and intestine. At the moment, we aren't time efficient enough to include those in the slaughter but perhaps future pigs may change that.
Thank you for sharing the hard part of raising animals for food, as well as the joy, and for all the care and respect you give them before and after their harvest. I don't eat much meat, but I'd feel a whole lot better about the meat I do eat if I knew the animals were treated like yours are!
Raising those animals has been quite profound. There is pride in their good health and happiness as they grow. There is humility and some dread when we have to steel ourselves to kill them. And there is gratitude when we are able to share the bounty with friends and family. Having to care for our own well-being aboard a remote sailboat is quite different to now caring for our livestock, though both lead to very deep life satisfaction.