class Archives - Ninja Cow Farm LLC

May 28, 2014May 27, 2014

Hog killing class gets a really nice writeup from CFSA

You may have noticed that I stopped posting pictures from our hog class a while back. The reason is, some of our followers, who love us and love our food, just weren’t excited to see hog parts on their daily feed (Hi Kelsey). While knowing your food and your farmer is very important, I think we can put the killing in it’s own box for a while. I’ve uploaded the rest of the pictures to the gallery so anyone who wants to see the details from our class can scroll to their hearts content. Everyone else can use our feed to stay up on what is happening currently.

Old time hog killing class — Your author Thomas, on class day.

Just because we’ve stopped posting pictures doesn’t mean we have given up on our hog class. Thomas Locke, from CFSA attended our class and fully participated. He also went home and wrote up a very nice article on the class and posted it on CFSA’s website. I can’t thank Thomas enough for his and CFSA’s support of our farm. If you aren’t familiar with CFSA, they are a great organization that is behind a lot of what we enjoy in our vibrant farming community.

April 4, 2014March 29, 2014

Hog class pics 21.0

Now we split the sternum.

The bone saw is harder than it looks. I took a few passes to help the students out.

April 3, 2014March 29, 2014

Hog class pics 20.0

Getting the anus cut out without making a mess is always a challenge. Here we are just being successful.

The only thing we “wasted” on this pig. We did not clean the intestines and use them for sausage. We did donate the innards to the wildlife on the farm who ate well that night.

This was a tricky bit because we were dumping the innards while trying to save the liver and kidneys and also the heart and lungs for anatomy class. Success! A clean cavity ready to wash out and then split.

April 2, 2014April 2, 2014

Hog class pics 19.0

For the cleanup of the hog I tried to do as much as possible except for the scraping. Once we got into butchery I tried to let the students do as much as they wanted.

Here we are separating the bladder and urethra from the hog. This is a careful process because you don’t want to get peed on at this point. This part was also pretty funny because I was so focused on safety, pictures, overall impact on students, etc. that when asked if this pig was a male or female I answered female while we were cutting off his male bits. Not my smartest moment. 🙂Separating the anus while trying to not get pooped on. This is the delicate bit. Once this is done, it’s pretty easy work.

April 1, 2014March 29, 2014

Hog class pics 18.0

Getting ready to gut.

Making the incision.

March 31, 2014March 29, 2014

Hog class pics 17.0

Miguel and John cleaning up the head while we work on the body. After burning off all the hair, a thorough rinse down to get everything clean.

March 25, 2014March 24, 2014

Hog class pics 16.0

Washing everything down.

Having scraped the hog all that we can, we now burn off the remaining hairs. This is quick and easy vs. continuing to scrape.

March 22, 2014March 13, 2014

Hog class pics 15.0

Getting to workFirst we take off the head. It went to our friend at the Mexican farmers market, who was quite happy to have it for a gift. Not quite so delicate work.The final product, ready to be cleaned up and taken to the market.