Hello mate, I am from Portugal. We have been killing pigs at home for several generations now and I can tell you a little bit on how we do it. First and I know this can be savage to think these days but we never stun the pig. When you stun the pig won't bleed so fast. Second, we bleed the pig because we use the blood for salames. We need the blood to be fresh. We kill pigswhen they are about 200kg's ( alive weight). Here is how it goes. The owner puts a small and thin rope tight around the pigs nose and attached to the front teeth of the animal. This rope will later be useful to pull the head back before the knife goes in. Another rope is tight to one of the animal back leg, this rope is around 3 meters and 1 cm diameter. We attack the pig to where we want to do the job, this is usually done by feeding him corn all the way. 4 men pick up the pig and lay him on his side on a bench. This is the point where the animal senses that something is wrong and starts to battle. Quickly the rope that is on his back leg is tighten around the bench and holding his back legs ( the legs can not be loose as they can really hurt a man). The guy that has the small rope attached to his nose stretches hard and holds the head( again this needs to be done well or than can bite or even spread the blood all around everyone). The other two man come on the back side of the pig and lay down on his body, one of them holds the front leg of the pig bending the elbow so it won't get on the way of the knife or blood. The fifth man comes then and does the kill. All these steps on the bench don't take more than a minute if all man know their positions and what they should be doing. If the blade hits the artery first time 3 or four minutes later the pig is dead. To all people that will read this and think that we are savages please don't. We just like to know what we eat and believe me the pig is very well treated in his life and usually lives a full year eating what he wants and moving around where he wants. I would defenately say that we give him a much better life than any slaughter house. Back to the pig, when the killing is done and the pig cleaned we leave the meat ganged until next day for all the blood to come out and we party for the rest of the day. You all take care and please own what you eat.
