Pig to Table Project: ‘I wanted nothing . . . to go wrong’

Editor’s note:

This is the last of a three-part series that chronicles the author’s effort to understand our relationship to the animals we eat.

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Pork: From field to plate: Tamar Haspel and her husband take on the sometimes-daunting task of raising pigs for slaughter.

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The death we want for our animals is the one we want for ourselves: painless, instant, on a day like any other. Our three pigs took seven months to reach slaughter weight , and my husband, Kevin, and I had been thinking about that slaughter for the duration. Painless. Instant. On a day like any other.

We had two choices. We could bring the killing to the pigs or bring the pigs to the killing. Neither choice was ideal.

If we did it at home, we could, if all went well, kill each pig with one shot, in their accustomed pen, over a favorite food. But there were legal issues involving the discharge of firearms and logistical issues involving the handling of 200-pound-plus carcasses. There was the problem of dealing with two live pigs reacting to the death of their compatriot. There was the possibility of contamination, doing all the work outside, without the hoists and scalders and stainless steel tables. And there was, of course, no guarantee that we could make all go well.

If we brought them to a slaughterhouse, they would have to travel in a stock trailer, which they had never been in, to a place they had never seen, to be held for an indeterminate period of time — so much for “a day like any other.” But the pigs would be killed by a professional, and the carcasses would be handled properly. The slaughter would probably be painless and instant, but it would happen behind closed doors, and we would never know.

It was a hard choice, and we looked to our consulting pig farmer to help us make it. Every first-time pig owner needs a consulting pig farmer, and we were fortunate to have Walter Jeffries, who raises pigs in Vermont, at Sugar Mountain Farm, just an e-mail away. He has helped us all along, from fencing to feeding to finishing, and encouraged us to slaughter on-site, if we could manage it.

Our concerns about transport and holding, he said, were important; those are proven pig stressors. But live pigs panicked by the death of their friend? Not to worry. “Realize that pigs have no taboo against cannibalism,” he told us. “When you kill a pig, what the other pigs are thinking is, ‘Ooooh! Looks delicious!’ ”

Making preparations

After doing a lot of reading, and visiting the slaughterhouse closest to us (a non-USDA facility we were not impressed with), we were leaning heavily toward home slaughter.

When you grow food — plant or animal — you find there are as many opinions about how to do it as there are people doing it. Pig people have different takes on breeds, on feed, on optimal slaughter weight. They raise pigs in different seasons, in different housing, at different growth rates. But they are virtually unanimous on killing; there is one right way, and it is straightforward.

This is how you kill a pig. First, you stun it with either an electric stunner or a gun (captive bolt or bullet). You know the pig is insensate because there is no eye movement or squealing, and you quickly cut into the neck and sever the large blood vessels behind the breastbone to start the bleeding. Then you hoist the pig by a hind leg, to bleed out.