I slaughtered 3 pigs this year in January, May and June.
My farm is in Kerala in South India. The one in January was the first I slaughtered a pig in the farm. It was a sow about 18 months old weighing 140 kg. I had no clue on how to go about it. We have a
chicken meat shop near my place. There is an old guy who kills and dresses the
chicken, his name is Thampan. He said he would come and slaughter the pigs, that he had prior experience as a butcher in another farm. In my area, meat slaughter is in the un-organised and non-regulated sector. There is little interference from
local government bodies. I assumed he would stun it with a blow on the head and then bleed it out as described in the posts. He surprised me by saying that he would strangle it. Now, I had never seen any such reference in the internet. But he was so confident and that he had slaughtered many such pigs this way.
Anyway on the D-day, he stepped into the pen at 4 am in the morning and managed to snag a rope hitch on the sow's teeth and tie it to a railing so that it could not run around. Then he tried to tie its legs together, but the rope kept slipping off. The pig started squealing and pulling away at the rope with all it's might. He then looped a plastic rope around it's neck and with his assistant at one end and he at another end, a third guy at the end of the rope snagged to it's mouth, all of them hauling away mightily and the pig creating a ruckus that was heard 2 miles away. At one stage I also pitched in and there were five men tugging away at different ropes. But the rope at the neck would not tighten beyond a point. It was a surreal scene. Finally I asked him to hit it on the head with the back of an ax. And that's how we managed to kill it. It was a bad and sickening way to kill the sow and an extremely depressing. We had brought up the pig in good comfort and feed, but I regret the extreme pain and stress we put it through.
Later in, I came to know that Thampan, in his previous experience, would have pigs trussed up and delivered to him in a supine position. They were smaller pigs. This was the first big pig he had to handle.
By the time of the 2nd slaughter in May, I realized that I had to come up with a better way. Guns are not easily available in Kerala and procuring a gun or license is a
project in itself. Bolt guns are not available. I came to know of an electric stunner, but was not cost effective. I built a frame made of GI pipe where the boar could come and stand inside a frame. Once he is in in, I had iron pipes to stop the movement forward and backward, essentially pinning him in place. By placing his feed in the frame we trained him to come and stand in the frame while feeding. We electrocuted him by tying an aluminum cable around his body in a single loop, connecting it to a power source and switching on the current for about 10 seconds. We hosed him down with
water before switching on the power. He dropped down without a sound and was dead in 10 second. Thampan bled him out immediately. It seemed the least painless way to take him down.
The third pig was slaughtered last week in the same way. But we made a mistake. We forgot to hose the sow with water. As a result, it did not get electrocuted, but squealed and wiggled it's way out of the aluminum cable and the frame. After some time, we managed to calm it down sufficiently for the next attempt. This time we hosed it with water and it worked. It squealed hard for about 5 seconds before dying. Our negligence in making it wet before the electrocution caused it pain, stress and panic. Lessons learnt the hard way for the pig.
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