Slaughtering Pigs
If you're keeping pigs for their meat the day will inevitably arrive when your pigs have to be slaughtered. Although this can be a difficult day, knowing what to expect and being well prepared will ensure that minimal stress is experienced by the pigs and their keepers. You've looked after them in anticipation of this day, and the least they deserve is a calm, well considered demise.
Our checklist for the day of slaughter would include:
- Have your transport arranged - you will need a livestock trailer, some straw to line it with and something to pull it;
- Know how to get to the abattoir, and know what time to be there;
- Have some practice reversing your trailer - many of us first-timers have experienced the mortification induced by failing repeatedly to reverse successfully up to the abattoir entry while an ever larger audience of farmers and stockmen gather to watch your pitiful efforts!
- Don't feed the pigs the night before taking them to slaughter. Getting them into and out of the trailer will be a lot easier if they are hungry;
- Take with you a bucket of feed, mobile phone and the abattoir's contact details;
- Know what's going to happen to the carcasses after slaughter, and make sure the abattoir knows too. Ours are delivered to our butcher straight from the abattoir - if you can make similar arrangements it keeps the process much more straightforward.
You should find the staff at the abattoir helpful and friendly, and a vet will be in attendance to make sure your animals are properly cared for. Once your pigs are out of the trailer and into the abattoir it's a matter of minutes at most before they are killed.