Many on this board have asked for the pics and many have asked me not to post the pics politely. So, while I consider the moral quandry of appeasing the bloodthirsty mob or PETA, I will give you some story on the other two pigs. First, though, I must break it to you gently that Gary is dead. In fact, much of him resides in the freezer. As I mentioned earlier, we went back to the sale barn to get two more pigs to replenish the herd. Well, we left that night with four calves and two pigs in the bed of a pickup truck. I don't understand Spanish that well, but I'm pretty sure the guy helping me load the truck was making jokes about me to his kids. Now, these animals weren't running loose in the bed of the truck, they were in a "goat cage" that my buddy had welded together for himself. He is a goat farmer, and routinely uses it to go back and forth to sales. It's basically a rectangle of cattle panels welded to some 3/4" metal tubing. It does its job. Now, I knew I might be pushing the limits of the bed of my F150 as I continued to bid on animals. However, I felt like a seasoned veteran now, and I was wanting to show off my bidding prowess to my wife, my friend, and his son that came with us. I wanted everyone to know that I am the Boss Hogg of Collin County. After loading them up and driving a few miles, we pull over for a quick dinner at McDonald's. I'm usually the type to eat on the go, but since I had just spent the last hour of my life in a place where it would actually improve the quality of life if employees didn't wash their hands before returning to work, I thought it best that we go inside and scald our hands before eating. As I lather up, I wonder what we did before soap was "antibacterial". What was the purpose of washing our hands 10 years ago? Anyway, we get into a discussion of religion over a Big N' Tasty, and we finally decide to go. As we leave, I see that one of the pigs is doing his best Michael Hutchence impersonation. He has wedged his head in between one of the top squares in the cattle panel in an effort to escape. At this point, his eyes are rolling back in his head, and he is foaming at the mouth. His tongue is blue, and I'm trying to remember if this is normal for pigs. I go to push his head back through the hole in the panel, and that's when I realize that we have a real problem. The pig lets out what you can only call a primal scream. He has pushed his head all the way through the hole past his jaw bone. Pigs heads are triangular in shape, so he has gotten his head through the hole, but if you try to push back, the jawbone catches on the wire. Now this pig is screaming like a banshee, and we are starting to draw a crowd at the McDonald's in Whitesboro, TX. My buddy climbs into the back of the truck (inside the cage), and attempts to lift the pig so that he can breathe while we try to free his head. At this moment, many of the fine people of Whitesboro offer help. In fact, one of the workers there at the McDonald's called her dad and told him to bring wire cutters. I asked her how long it would take her dad to get there, and she said "ten minutes". I actually got a chance in my life to utter the words, "I don't think we have that much time. He's not going to make it unless we do something soon." I start ransacking the cab of my truck looking for some tool to use. Everytime my friend has to drop the pig (his back is giving out on him), the pig lets out a high pitched squeal and starts kicking his feet. I felt like a combination of Doug Ross and McGyver as I emerge from the cab of the truck with a crowbar from my tire changing kit. I'm able to pry open the bars on the cattle panel enough that we can push the head back through. The pig made a few sounds like he was sucking the last of the milkshake from the bottom of the cup, tilted his head to the side like he was eating a taco, and laid down in the bed of the truck. When we got home, he still had Taco Head, so the kids named him Twisted. They asked me what he looked like when he was dying, and I told him about his eyes rolling back into his head. They changed his name to Undertaker. Undertaker is still alive today, along with Sausage and Brownie (the other pig).
Well done sir.... now.. we don't necessarily need to see the pics of you doing your Hannibal Lecter on crack imitation as you eviscerate Porky... err.. Gary.. but.. a few before and after shots would be ducky. Did you do the apple in his mouth routine?
The calves were all about a week old. I could tell there were some things wrong, but I bought them for $25 each. I figured that if one lived, that it would be a good return on the investment. They all had scours, and we tried everything to help them get better. Eventually, three of the four died due to the virus that caused the scours. Someday, I will give you more details. It is a very funny story in a dark sort of way.
coach...I think you can tastefully post some pictures. Maybe hold back on the really gruesome ones, but I want to see what all of the bru-ha-ha is really about. As for the PETA folks...it's pretty simple if they don't want to actually see the pictures. DON'T CLICK ON THIS THREAD ! Why should they deprive the rest of us from viewing pictures we anxiously want to see?
Post the pics! Honestly, I was beginning to think the pig won and was posting about "Death of a Human" on some piggy forum somewhere.
How about posting the pics on a photo site and providing a link...that way it will be view by choice.
The calves were more than likely rejected by the momma cow, the momma died, or they were holstein babies. It sounds like they got the scours because they were off milk to long. You will want to get the baby on calf manta right away, as I'm sure you have. Go to the ranch supply and get a bottle so the kiddos can feed it. Can't wait to see you butcher it after 2 or 3 months of this.
As was again await an update: I showed steers while I was in high school. My brother and I generally had 4 or 6 steers each year. Anyway, one year, we had a cow die while giving birth so we bottle fed the calf and fed him calf mana until he got big enough to eat with the show steers.....then we let him go after it. He was foundered very badly due to his poor start, plus he was a dwarf. But he ate like a man on a mission. We had a cat that used to stand on his back while he was at the feed trough eating with the big boys. He got very little exercise because he would stand underneath the misting fan that we kept on the steers to keep their hair growing. Generally, one of the show steers would be standing up and he would be lying down underneath the show steer. When people found out about him, they started dropping hints that should we want to sell him they wanted to get first dibs at buying him. Pretty soon, we had a decent bidding war going on for the little guy. They knew the quality of food he had been eating and how good he was going to butcher out. I think we ended up butchering him and giving him to a needy old man we knew. Word of caution: BAD things happen if a calf opens the feed barn door and eats an entire bag of calf mana.
OK, I have decided to go with my gut and post the pictures of the pigs. Now, the time was rapidly approaching for butcher, and I like to imagine myself as a pretty tough guy. I watched some videos on youtube about killing pigs for butcher, and I started to have doubts about my toughness. In fact, I knew I couldn't do it. Do you have those friends that will do just about anything? I mean, they will do stuff you don't want to do, stuff that no one wants to do, just so they can say they did it? If you don't have those guys as friends, you need some. So, I called Matt and Cody, and not only did they agree to kill it, skin it, and quarter if for me, they kept calling and asking about different ways they could kill it. Finally, I had to tell Matt that he could use his .300 Win Mag and nothing else -- no bows (I didn't want any meat ruined), no knives (I didn't want Matt to get hurt because friends like him are important). So, Matt and Cody showed up after work on Thursday to do the deed, asking only for Bud Light as payment. I won't put a picture of the kill shot up, but it was pretty gruesome. Matt shot the pig right behind the ear from about 3 feet away. The hole on the opposite side looked like something from Terminator 2. I knew that I had just lost a lot of good tamale meat. If you ever want to know what a pig does when it dies, here are some links. I was surprised at their accuracy.... Tame Version So, while Gary was still kicking, Cody ran over and cut his throat, allowing much of the blood to bleed out. The other pigs didn't seem to mind so much. In fact, I think they were happy that Gary was gone. So, we drag him over to the hanging tree, and we craft a rude pulley system out of a dog tie out. (Yes, I realize I'm a redneck). While we do that, Matt goes about gutting Gary. Cody and Matt talk strategy ] Gary starting to do some self-gutting Matt and Cody figgurin' -- yes that is a trailer full of trash in the background. Very ironic, indeed. We used my Polaris Ranger to hoist the pig. Here is a pic of me giving silent approval like Saul at the stoning of Stephen... More pics... After the gutting, we start the skinning process. Cody had the idea of starting the skinning process, placing a baseball under the skin, tying a tie out around the baseball, hooking the tie out to the bumper of his truck, and pulling on it. Does this sound like it will work? I didn't think so either, but I gave him the benefit of the doubt. Now, it may have worked. I have heard of people using this with golf balls or rocks on deer, but a pig's skin is tougher, and Gary had lost some of the musculature of his neck due to Matt's .300 Win Mag. Skinning Pictures.... i382.photobucket.com/albums/oo261/coachkiss/BirthdaysandPig456.jpg"> So, Cody started to pull with his truck, and Gary's head was swinging like Charlotte in the John Anderson song... So, we put him up on a pallet and skinned him the old-fashioned way, with knives. The redneck in Cody couldn't resist trying some new methods, so here is Cody with his hoof removal system. Here is one of my son's with Gary's head. As you can see, they handled it pretty well. So, Matt and Cody quartered it, while I took Gary's skin and head and dumped in another pasture. I didn't want coyotes coming after my calves. I took a huge ice chest, filled the bottom with ice, put the meat in, and filled it the rest of the way with ice, making sure to get the body cavity filled with ice as well. The next morning, I opened the drain on the ice chest and it looked like Moses had turned the Nile to blood. I couldn't believe how much blood water came out of the ice chest. I put more ice in there, and waited for my buddy, Larry to come over on Friday night. Up next, the rub...
Sweet lord. You have done the unimaginable -- you have exceeded the promise and potential of the initial post. The greusomeness, the incompetence -- the sheer redneckery of it all -- simply unparalleled. Bravo, sir, bravo! And seriously -- a .300 mag? God made blades for a reason -- and you ruined one of the best parts (the cabeza) in the process. I will presume that the lesson has been learned for next time.
It's weird the stuff that I didn't see in the pictures. I just noticed the tires for my Polaris that I have stacked up in front of our guest house. I bet the people renting it from us want me to move those.
A .300 Win Mag from three feet? Dios Mio man! A .22 would have worked much betterl. Anyhoo, great pics. Thanks for posting them up.
Thanks for posting coach. BrisketTexan definitely said it best. Bravo to you for following through on pics. I hope the meat turns out tasty for ya.
I can only echo what Brisket said. Not only did it shatter the expectations, but the pure genius and depth of the redneckery is off the freaking charts -- about a 412 on a scale of 1-10. All things considered, I'm a little surprised that there wasn't a Darwin Award involved in all this. And I mean that with the utmost respect... for sure if any of my friends had tried this I would've been out there drinking Bud Light and laughing my *** off too.
