I don't know how many people really think about castrating pigs; I had not given it much thought in the past, being more of a city boy. Apparently it is common practice among hog farmers. We would like to raise hogs in Pure Water Hollow, someday, so I have been trying to learn all I can about the process. I did not grow up around hogs so I have much to learn. I did not even know that castration of pigs was a needful thing until last month!
I work at a public high school that has an excellent agriculture department. (Yes, there is a bit of irony that I believe strongly in home-schooling, and home-school our own children, yet make my living at a government school: future post perhaps?) One of the ag department's projects involve raising hogs. They have 9 males and one female pig that are all 20-40 pounds right now, all being raised for butchering.
I had watched one of our ag. teachers, Mr. Wetzel, castrate a pig last month and today I was going to be able to observe the other ag. teacher, Mr. Kirk, at work. He had to go out to K-Mart to get some more iodine, so I was in charge of the class until he got back. I was to walk with the class out to the farm and he was going to meet us there. Before we went out to the pigs I explained the three reasons I had been told last month why it is a needful thing to do:
1) It stops the sex drive so they won't mate with any of their litter-mates; 2) It will make them gentler and more docile and therefore they will gain more weight; and 3) If they were left in tact the testosterone will spoil the meat to the point that the smell makes it inedible. Most of the students seemed to already be aware of these things, but at least I set the stage for the procedure at the farm.
When we got to the hog trailer, it was surprising how clean it was and without much of a foul odor. Out of the 9 male pigs, 3 were already barrows now, which I have learned is the name for a castrated pig. One was done last month when I observed, and the other two were done in an earlier class today when I couldn't get away from my duties. The three that had had the procedure done looked just as healthy and happy as the other six, which were to become barrows at this moment. The only thing that gave a couple of them away was the dried iodine on their legs from earlier today.
One of the students got in the hog area and cornered one of the pigs and picked it up. The pig squealed wildly when this happened, but calmed down pretty soon. This was a larger one, close to 40 pounds, and Mr. Kirk commented that it would have been better for the pigs had they been castrated at just a couple of weeks old, but now would be fine also. The student was told to hold the pig up by its hind legs about chest level with the pig's belly facing out toward the teacher. The teacher felt the area where the testicles were and used a finger to get behind one of the testicles. He then took a scalpel and made an incision where he was pushing behind the testicle and also cut into the testicle to make it pop out of the incision. He then lightly scraped the vas deferens and tissue connecting to the testicle until it was severed and fell to the ground. (At this point one of the students, who happened to be a macho, athletic type, left the scene and lost his lunch, so to speak. He stayed around the corner, very pale, out of the sight of the pigs for the remainder of the castrating session. I was impressed that no one made fun of him.) Mr. Kirk then pushed from behind on the other testicle to the same hole made by the incision and then he gently sliced into the testicle to make it pop out like the first one did, and then he lightly scraped the vas tissue, and let that testicle fall to the ground. It is important to scrape instead of make a clean cut so the blood will coagulate better and not bleed as much. He then rinsed the incision with iodine to help sterilize it and also gave it a 2 cc injection of an antibiotic in the pig's hip. The pig was then released back into the lot with the rest and he seemed just fine! He walked around like nothing happened. Mr. Kirk said that the iodine rinse probably hurt the worst. The pig was so excited with such an adrenalin rush when he was caught that he does not feel much pain during the procedure if it is done quickly!
We watched Mr. Kirk castrate the next one, which was a bit smaller, and another one after that. Each time it was pretty much the same as described above. The only real difference was that the student holding the pig up by the legs got tired and other students had to take turns holding the pigs up. After seeing it done three times it was starting to look kind of easy. It seemed that this method was easier than the way Mr. Wetzel had done it last month. He had the pig held down low with the pigs front feet on the ground and the back feet being held up by a student with the pigs body being held firmly between the students legs. He made an incision on the right and got the testicle out and off much the same way Mr. Kirk did, but then he made a second incision on the left and repeated the procedure with that testicle. Mr. Kirk says that method is fine, but he prefers to make only one incision so to cut down on the chance of infection setting in.
It was time to catch pig number 4, and he was the lucky pig to get a student volunteer to perform his operation. The squeal the little guy made was rather unnerving in itself, but it did not seem to phase Samantha. This particular class was made up of about 5 girls and 8 boys and Samantha is a petite, pretty looking high school girl. She was the first to volunteer and stated that she is hoping to go into veterinary medicine and she needs to be able to do things like this. She took the scalpel and tried to find the spot to make the incision. She started to cut and she cut and she cut. It seemed she was a bit hesitant to apply much pressure, but it finally went through. Mr. Kirk got the testicle to pop out for her and she went ahead and scraped through the vas deferens and tissue and let it drop to the ground. She then pushed from the left and slit the other testicle to make it pop out herself and proceeded to sever that testicle. She then rinsed the area with iodine and gave it the shot of antibiotic by herself. She did an outstanding job, even though there was a bit more blood than when Mr. Kirk did it. I am in no way a women's libber or anything like that, but she did do better, and was more at ease, than the boy student who volunteered to do the next pig!
I was hoping that pig number 5 would be mine, because if no other student volunteered, Mr. Kirk was going to let me try. But it was only right for one of the students in the class to attempt it. With this last one there was much more blood, and Mr. Kirk said that it was because the pig had to hang there so long that he started to know what was going on, and was kind of panicking. The boy (I forgot his name) had more trouble getting the cuts to go through than Samantha did but he stayed at it and eventually got the job done. Even this fifth pig that had so much more trouble seemed to be fine when he was released back into the lot! (In case you are counting there was still a 6th pig. Mr. Kirk wanted to save that one for his next class, which I couldn't be a part of.)
I am very thankful that I was able to be a part of this class today. I think it was much more beneficial to me than the Algebra class I am usually in during that period! I am feeling much more comfortable with the idea that I could castrate our own pigs when we finally start raising them for ourselves. We would like to be able to do as much as possible on our own and not be forced to call on a vet for help. I've been told that a vet will castrate the pigs for us for about $100 a pig! We could easily have 6 or 8 boars in one litter that would need to be castrated; so going to a vet would be out of the question!
These barrows are slated for butchering and I think the ag. department is going to be butchering at least some of the pigs in house this spring. That is sure to be another wonderful learning experience that I hope I will be able to be a part of. The more I learn about the hog raising trade, the greater the benefit will be to my Pure Water Hollow Homestead!
[Added to post in December]
(We ended up getting pigs of our own. I took Porky in to school and let Mr. Kirk castrate him for us. That tale is told in another post if anyone is interested in seeing a couple of pictures of how he did it.)
3 comments
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
GrandmaRosie on October 4, 2006 at 11:22 pm (edit)
Very interesting. I have never seen this done. We raised pigs for our table when I was a kid, but we always had females. I love your site. Keep up the good posting!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Anonymous on October 5, 2006 at 9:10 am
Jake was in one of those classes. He thought it was interesting, and looked pretty easy. I told him I wanted some of the pork if they butcher one. LOL!!!
Marcella
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mrs. Joseph Wood on October 5, 2006 at 5:43 pm
I loved reading your post, I think it will make a great homeschool project once we are ready for pigs. Pigs are something I am just now learning about as well. I will keep reading your posts to learn more as you share! Thanks for stopping by my blog earlier, it's great meeting others!
No comments:
Post a Comment