Slaughter Party Update

Due to rain and other events we ended up having a pretty small turnout, but luckily enough to go ahead and slaughter Macaroon and several roosters. Jed and Guy did a ton of prep work on Friday getting things set up so that Macaroon was separated from the other piggies, built a bridge, moved our washed out bridge back to where it needed to be, fed the animals, built the structure for scalding her, picked up some extra straw to soak up the blood, built a little platform under the hanging area, and re-enforced the structure that we were going to hang Macaroon off of.

Saturday started early with getting the piggies nice and drunk. They mixed up cob with molasses and two quarts of vodka, which all the pigs promptly ate. Macaroon simply fell asleep, but Digger and Oreo got goofy drunk and started staggering around and doing silly things. Digger began digging like mad then staggering into things. Oreo began trying to put a blue tarp around him and swayed as if to dance. It was my task to distract the piggies so I took some of the rice crispy treats that I had made for Jed, some left over waffles, and some pumpkins and walked out towards the piggies. I moved them to the farthest part of the paddock and enticed them with unspeakable goodies. They loved the rice crispy treats and the waffles, and they even found the pumpkins delicious. Jed let me know that he was going to shoot so I gave them some more pumpkins and when the shot was fired they got a little startled but didn't let it distract the from the food. I kept them busy for a little bit longer and left pumpkins there for them. Our neighbor ended up calling me over and just frustrated the hell out of me (story for another post) so that when I walked back to the group I was in a bad mood.

We tried scalding her but we didn't have enough water and the temp of 150 wasn't working so well. Guy and I skinned her and then I went ahead and took out the organs. After that Jed split her in half and we were able to take her in to finish the cuts. Guy and Jed jointed her and then Holly, Brighid, and Melody helped vaccum seal the cuts. Holy Brighid, and Melody also helped cut up pieces of fat so that I could start making tallow.

Soon after Lucy and Alex showed up and then they went out to slaughter some chickens. In all we ended up slaughtering about 6-8 chicken/roosters. The roosters just had to go and so did the Frizzles, which Holly lovingly called them zombie chickens. We were able to start grinding the left over "stew meat" to make into sausage making and I cut out the intestines and started cleaning them while dinner was served. We had corned beef and cabbage and then were able to send people home with some honey, eggs, lard, and chickens. =) All in all, a good day, but we'll need a lot more help when we do Oreo.