Redbow
Senior Member
Yep, I have held a chicken many times for my Grandma so she could chop off its head. A good ole free ranging yard buzzard will beat any grocery store chicken with taste. And their eggs as well.
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Old Timey Hog Killins- anyone still do this?
- Thread starter HardlyHangin
- Start date
trad bow
wooden stick slinging driveler
You are correct sir. But it’s still funny to watch the reaction of someone who has no idea what is about to happen once you cut the chicken’s head off and turned it loose.
Redbow
Senior Member
That chicken with no head will sling blood on you if you don't get out of the way when its head first comes off. Then comes the wing flapping, the jumping, gets up on its feet for a few seconds then jumps some more until its heart quits beating. Sounds cruel but we had to eat, nowdays a person might get into trouble with chopping off a chickens head if the wrong person sees it.
trad bow
wooden stick slinging driveler
Bleeding out the meat. That’s just the way my ancestors always did it. Now they have cones to slide the chicken in head first to cut it off to bleed the meat. Then there’s a small machine with flappers inside that remove the feathers from the chicken without having to dunk in hot water. All available to the home processor.
I loved taking cracklings straight out of the hot cast iron pot . Great Eats!!
Our salt box sat in a corner of a back bedroom used for storage. That house is no longer there and has grown up with brush and trees. Bet there is one fine salt lick there now.
HardlyHangin
Senior Member
What breed hogs were yall raising? Would you breed them year after year or buy piglets and raise them out?
This is so interesting to me. Undoubtedly most of my generation (including myself) has never taken part in this cultural pasttime. Unfortunately it and other keystone Appalachian heritage traditions are dying out, and it makes me sad.
Apparently, based on anecdotal evidence, the "good ole days" ended when I came around, lol.
This is so interesting to me. Undoubtedly most of my generation (including myself) has never taken part in this cultural pasttime. Unfortunately it and other keystone Appalachian heritage traditions are dying out, and it makes me sad.
Apparently, based on anecdotal evidence, the "good ole days" ended when I came around, lol.
Redbow
Senior Member
We raised our own piglets born right there on the farm. We had Poland China and Chester White. The hogs cross bred my grandpa never bought piglets but he did sell a few that were not needed for food or breeding stock.
There are still a few people around here who do it but not like back in the day. We used to kill, scald, scrape, butcher, render, cure, and can a couple every year. It finally got so you could buy pork a lot cheaper than you could raise the hogs, and with a lot less work and aggravation. I would sure like to have some of that old home-cured country ham and canned sausage right now, though.
And the, the last step where you lit a piece of paper and singed off the remaining pinfeathers stunk even worse.
We always put a washtub upside down over it real quick and left it there til it quit flopping.
Redbow
Senior Member
Great idea, that would have saved me from being bloodied by the chicken many times in the past.
trad bow
wooden stick slinging driveler
Steve where’s all the fun in covering up the chicken? Let it enjoy its time until it can’t go no further.
B. White
Senior Member
My mother would be 99, if living. My daddy never wanted chicken cooked growing up. I think he had enough as a kid and seen enough of them picking through manure that he'd take pork or beef any day. I got some after he'd died and my mother came out when I was doing the first round of killings. I couldn't tell if she liked the idea, or if the PTSD set in from her early days. They had a tough life growing up and memories were good, but I'm sure the smells brought back memories of harder times.
B. White
Senior Member
My wife is about to drive me crazy wanting a few. I've never participated in hog killing, but based on what kin told me it was multi person event and not a one man job, or one man and one woman. I'm having a hard time convincing her that this is not what she wants for her anniversary present.
trad bow
wooden stick slinging driveler
The time is coming that these skills will be needed. I’ve killed and dressed many a tamed hog. If you prepare correctly ahead of time then one skilled man can take care of the hog. Being there was no refrigeration at the time, the sharing of meat was a way to keep the hog from going to waste. It was easier with multiple people and a couple of mules.
Not since I was a young man, but I still remember how it`s done.
NE GA Pappy
Mr. Pappy
we raised ours. Yorkshires mostly and once in a while we might cross with a Hampshire boar. Ain't no telling how many pigs we sold at 15 to 20 a piece. The sow would often have 10 or 12 pigs, and once they hit 6 weeks old, we would separate out the best 4 or so, and sell the rest. It helped pay for some pig food. We would feed scraps from the house ( slop ) and kept a slop bucket that we emptied every evening. That is why Daddy called it slopping the hogs. The food we bought was a mash, and we would stir in water enough to make a thin slurry. That was the water and feed for them. We raised them out in a 8 x 8 floored pen that the was sloped so we could keep them cleaned out
NE GA Pappy
Mr. Pappy
I have a video here of my grandpa and dad killing a hog. I was a newborn, so it would have been winter of 59. I don't know how to load stuff up like that or I would share it with you guys
Redbow
Senior Member
We usually had at least 8 people helping out with the hog killings and that wasn't too many for the job to be done. Up just b4 daylight for breakfast then off to the pasture to shoot and stick the hogs Grandpa had selected for processing. My Grandpa never stayed to see his animals killed, he went to the house and his nephews did the killing and sticking job. After the hogs were dead and bled out Grandpa went back with the tractor and trailer to help load the hogs for the trip to the scalding vat. Processing 5 or 6 big hogs is no quick and easy task it took all day to cut up the hogs salt them down and dry up the lard. And Grandpa could pick the coldest day for a hog killing but that is what was needed no chance of the meat spoiling on cold hog killing days.
