It was just over one year ago that my husband and I killed and butchered Red the pig. That single event informed my eating more than any other ever has. A Vegetarian Slaughters a Pig At the time of the slaughter, I was a vegetarian, as I had been for a decade. I didn’t eat meat for many reasons. Chief among them was that I didn’t know how to assess the quality of the animal’s [...]

Some may find pictures in this post graphic. Sometimes you have one idea in mind and the day takes a totally different direction. Today was such a day. A fellow chicken-keeping family called around 10 in the morning and said this was the day they wanted to kill one of their hens. Speckles, a Speckled Sussex like our Sussey, wasn’t laying eggs and wasn’t following the flock. They invited us to participate. After a quick [...]

A friend recently asked, knowing that Alex and I slaughtered a pig this spring, “Should my preschooler see an animal being slaughtered?” My answer is yes, with four important caveats. Witnessing an animal slaughter is not only culturally normal in the very recent past but can teach children valuable lessons. But first the caveats. 1) A child must want to watch the animal being killed and butchered. It is not appropriate for a person of [...]

Last week I shared our method for slaughtering a pig by hand.  Previously we shared why we wanted to slaughter. Today’s final post is reflective of the whole experience. Work to Be Done Rachel: Once Red was dead, we all worked quickly to process her body.  There was no spoken communication, but there was a shared feeling that part of honoring her life was to finish the work.  There was a sense that to raise [...]

Meet Red.  She’s the pig we slaughtered last Saturday with the able assistance of another meat lover, JR, and Red’s owner, Denise of 2Silos farm.  Earlier I published why we wanted to slaughter a pig. What follows is a factual account of how we humanely harvested this meat animal.  It was hard manual labor that we attended to with reverence for the life we took. I have included pictures to illustrate exactly what happened.  Some [...]

A few months ago, Denise Beno from 2Slios farm tweeted that she had an unclaimed Duroc/York pig this season.  She asked if anyone might want to buy a whole or half.  Alex and I and decided that purchasing a side of pig would be a good way to fill our freezer with well raised meat and give him more experience with home charcuterie. In making arrangements with Denise, Alex learned that traditional processors often discard [...]