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by _heimdall 760 days ago
We processed and butchered our first two pigs earlier this year. Its not for the feint of heart, but I wouldn't trade the experience for anything.

We raised them from a few months old (we took them from a farm that was having to close) and did the entire processing and butchering process ourselves. The meat is night and day better than what you can buy in a store, the bacon is delicious, and we know the animal lived an excellent life and had a near instant end.
1 comments
globular-toast 760 days ago
"Processed". Did you personally see their "near instant end"?

There is a very humane way to kill mammals actually: inert gas asphyxiation. A pig will happily enter a chamber full of nitrogen and die peacefully. If you arranged that then it's commendable. Personally meat is nowhere near important enough to me to go to such lengths, though.

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_heimdall 760 days ago
By processed I mean the act of skinning, gutting, and cleaning.

As far as the near instant end I mentioned, yes I did see it. I pulled the trigger myself, each pig dropped instantly. I wouldn't begin to claim that there is a humane way to kill anything. Taking a life is no small thing, though its a part of life it shouldn't be taken lightly and demands respect.

I had a bad experience with attempting to use gas asphyxiation to put down a baby chick that was suffering. It didn't go well unfortunately, and though I'm sure with just the right setup it would work really well, I don't have such a setup.

While we're on this subject, though very out of place for HN, I've never personally agreed with the idea that death can be humane. It seems to be a relative comparison if suffering from a third party's perspective. We never really know what one experiences when they die, we only know what we see and what appears to be suffering. We similarly assume that plants don't suffer when killed, frankly I just don't buy it. There's plenty of research showing communication between plants, why couldn't they feel pain or loss? Do plants truly not feel anything, or are they just so different from us that we don't recognize any signs if pain or suffering?

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