Pig Killer Cleaver-Blade

Uath

Uath

Joined
Oct 25, 2003
Messages
703
My mother used to talk about how my great grandfather slaughtered pigs. She said he had a huge knife/cleaver that he used to make the kill strike. Apparently it was so huge and heavy that he was the only one who could use it. She said she dreaded the pik killings because of the way they screamed. Also, my great grandmother made he help with all the butchering. They used every part of the pig. My great grandmother was known far and wide for her head cheese. People loved it, but my mother would never touch it (She helped make it).

Does anyone have a pic of the blade used to kill hogs. I've looked and looked, but all I find are big cleavers. I would LOVE to find his actual blade, but tools were tools back then. They were used up, or stashed somewhere. My mother kind of described a huge cleaver, but not quite. I'm going to keep studying images.
 
This looks likely, but it doesn't look particularly heavy. She might have meant that only my great grandfather had the SKILL to weld it properly:

butcher-holding-cleaver-pig-carcass-aid004ar13.jpg


anti-pig_(bloody)-270375-1249627466.jpeg
 
I think I know what you're talking about. We had one lying around when I was a kid, I never saw it being used. I'm not sure what it was called, but it was definitely intended to be used with two hands.
 
That looks like it (top pic). I remember it being bigger, but things look bigger to kids.
 
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This looks like it might be it. It's an antique slaughtering axe:

old-slaughtering-tools-1.1-800x800.jpg
 
Uath said:
This looks like it might be it. It's an antique slaughtering axe:

old-slaughtering-tools-1.1-800x800.jpg
Click to expand...



Strange.
I've never heard about butchering animal stock with blades. Stunning hit to the head, and then sticking knife pig(better), or slicing neck from the bottom(worse)
 
idaho said:
Strange.
I've never heard about butchering animal stock with blades. Stunning hit to the head, and then sticking knife pig(better), or slicing neck from the bottom(worse)
Click to expand...

Butchering with knives

[video=youtube;quvkfkU-KZk]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quvkfkU-KZk[/video]


Why is it better to stab the animal than to cut it?
 
The video is being blocked for copy right reasons it stated. Anyways I'll chime in here, having worked on farms during slaughter, a sharp hunting knife was used to slit throats, the animal was confined to a kill pen the day before, taken off food to help empty the gut, but provided with water. The following day it would be restrained by helpers holding the pig down on its back, a bucket placed under the neck to catch the blood and help keep the area clean, and then the throat cut before it could make much of a scream. Once the pig went white from the loss of blood and dead, it would go into the scalding barrel to loosen the hair so that it could be scraped off, then gutted and hung to age for a few days depending on the outdoor temperatures. Nothing went to waste.
 
These cleavers are certainly not used to kill the pig but to split the carcass and chop through bones in a few places. It's not even a good idea to slit the throat but to stick the blade of narrow knife into the artery at the right place which takes some knowledge and experience and this after the pig had been stunned by a shot with a .22 caliber slug through the brain. Ok, but it wasn't always done so. It's a practice I would like to see normalized because as of now it is done somewhat underground and to a large extent in ignorance which does these animals no good, and there is plenty evidence of this to be seen through internet.
I'd say the inquiry needs to be rephrased with some more clarity of intent. Are you interested in a knife used to slaughter or a cleaver used in butchery?

E.DB.
 
KingKoma said:
Butchering with knives

[video=youtube;quvkfkU-KZk]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quvkfkU-KZk[/video]


Why is it better to stab the animal than to cut it?
Click to expand...

Ok, I knew that one situation and film. But it is VERY specific, not

When it comes to stabbing and cutting. Maybe stabbing is not the best word. Precision cut is better. You should not cut animal Vertebrate trachea or gullet ("eating pipe" - i hope it is proper word).
You just cut/stab the arteries.
 
From what I can gather, my mother probably didn't actually watch the killing. She was, after all, a child and a life-long animal lover. Probably, the pig was killed and THEN had it's head lopped. South Georgia in the 1930's was a lot like 1700 in some ways. My great grandfather apparently, was a very hard man. He ran a logging crew and farmed. Back then, all the farmhands were fed at the family table for dinner (12 o'clock). My mother said the menu was always the same. Field peas, rice, ham, and a pound cake. She said the field hands ate like... well, field hands. They dried the beans on a grate and made everything totally by hand.

Apparently making head cheese (she said all the hands just LOVED head cheese.... yetch) was pretty hard going as was the sausage. My favorite stories involve my great grandmother doctoring the hands. SHe would sew up wounds that sounded REALLY bad. Just boil the needle and thread on the stove and get out the turpentine. Doctors apparently didn't exist.

By the way, turpentine is one of the finest medicines that has ever existed. I can't believe it's not available anymore as medicine.
 
idaho said:
Maybe stabbing is not the best word. Precision cut is better. You should not cut animal Vertebrate trachea or gullet ("eating pipe" - i hope it is proper word).
You just cut/stab the arteries.
Click to expand...

I meant "stabbing" as in "with the point of a sharp object enter it into a body".

Why shouldnt you cut the "eating pipe"? What problems does it cause?
 
Ernest DuBois said:
These cleavers are certainly not used to kill the pig but to split the carcass and chop through bones in a few places. It's not even a good idea to slit the throat but to stick the blade of narrow knife into the artery at the right place which takes some knowledge and experience and this after the pig had been stunned by a shot with a .22 caliber slug through the brain. Ok, but it wasn't always done so. It's a practice I would like to see normalized because as of now it is done somewhat underground and to a large extent in ignorance which does these animals no good, and there is plenty evidence of this to be seen through internet.
I'd say the inquiry needs to be rephrased with some more clarity of intent. Are you interested in a knife used to slaughter or a cleaver used in butchery?

E.DB.
Click to expand...

Yes--those are the normal uses of the tools. But if the animal was actually dispatched with one and it was a large two-handed unit, it would seem to imply that a carcass spitting cleaver was perhaps also applied outside its usual and intended use. Much like how many folks will use flathead screwdrivers as pry tools.
 
"Why shouldnt you cut the "eating pipe"? What problems does it cause? "

It is not preferred as it introduces bacteria to surrounding meat. Just as cutting the vertabrae can expose the flesh to nasties in the spinal fluid.

I have seen farm animals dispatched with a ball peen hammer to the forhead and hung/drained. Many methods are used depending on what is at hand and how people are taught.

Bill
 
lmalterna said:
"Why shouldnt you cut the "eating pipe"? What problems does it cause? "

It is not preferred as it introduces bacteria to surrounding meat. Just as cutting the vertabrae can expose the flesh to nasties in the spinal fluid.

Bill
Click to expand...

So if you intend to eat the whole animal, and thus being exposed to any nasties that might be present in the mouth/spinal fluid anyway, it doesnt matter if you stick or slice?
 
Typically animals are killed with a low caliber penetrating device administered in the correct location. It's fast and humane. Because It's fast, it keeps the adrenaline level low, (adrenaline is bad for meat flavor). I believe the large cleaver would have been used for butchering purposes. Now days, the killing instrument is probably pneumatic. If you've seen the movie "No Country for Old Men", you know what I mean.

I've heard bison are very hard to kill. Thick skulls I guess. Kind of like some of you guys.

Later

Brent
 
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