Pig slaughter class

I'm going to be slaughtering a pig for my own consumption in about two weeks. If you are in the greater Seattle area and would like to learn how to slaughter your own animal, you're welcome to come and watch and learn.

I've taught adult level classes for most of a decade on a variety of topics; this particular event is a dry run of a class I'm thinking about offering, and as such it'll be informal, and hands-on, and your price of admission is answering questions from me about the class itself -- feedback.

The commitment is 3 hours on a saturday morning, from 10am to 1pm.

Covered:

Preparation for slaughter
Tools
Equipment
Supplies
Prepping the animal

The kill
Brief discussion of legal kill methods
My preferred kill: .22 bullet
Methods of capturing the blood if you need/want to

Scalding/scraping vs skinning
Why scrape when skinning is easier
Prepping for scraping
Scraping the pig

Field dressing/gutting a pig
opening the belly
Inspection of organs
Brief discussion of cleaning intestines for use as sausage casing

-----------Up to here is what you need to know to dress a pig for a whole-pig BBQ. Past this is what you'll need to know to continue to break down the pig into "retail" cuts - what you're used to seeing in the supermarket.

How to split a pig with a meat saw or axe

Dividing the pig into primal cuts
Belly
loin
Shoulder
Ham

Splitting the pig into halves, and then into primal cuts (Shoulder, ham, belly, loin)

After the pig is split into the primals you're basically at the "costco" point of butchery -- you have large roasts and hams that you'll recognize from costco.

Send me an email if you're interested, and tell me what you'd like to get out of this. Are you a producer who'd like to kill their own pigs? Do you raise pigs for your family and want to save money on cut-and-wrap fees? Want to know more about the process?

email me at bruceki@homeacresfarms.com