Processing our first pig this weekend!

Just really excited and nervous and anxious but happy (but still nervous) at the same time. We raise pigs and do pork shares, and have had a mobile butcher do our pigs in the past but we’re taking another big leap in self sufficiency and harvesting our own pig by ourselves this weekend. No help, just my husband and I!

I think we’re ready. He’s a little guy, just a step above roaster. We first were going to do a roaster but decided to let him get to 150lbs instead so I can get more sausage. Now I know we won’t get much meat off of him - we normally harvest at 300 lbs when we’ve had a butcher process for us. But since it’s our first time we wanted to keep it smaller and easier to learn on. Plus it’s a boar pig just shy of 6mo so, younger the better. He’s beginning to act boarish and we’re not keeping him for breeding, and not up for a late castration.

We have :

• two types of gambrels incase something breaks or doesn’t work (a hard metal game one and a wire one that’s adjustable and I can use two meat hooks on the loops if needed.)
• a pulley system to lift him easily.
• giant cooler and bags of ice ready
• two butcher hand saws (16 and 22 in)
• cheap sawzall and 6 and 9in meat blades for the spine cuts and big bone cuts
• 6 in curved boning knife
• 10 in curved breaking knife
• shorter smaller knife I use for rabbit skinning in case I need a smaller blade (an an assortment of knives ready tbh - we harvest chickens and rabbits ourselves already.)
• 2 butcher hooks with handles incase one of us needs a good grip on a chunk of meat while the other pulls (and a bunch of s hooks)
• a deep manure tub I’ll be putting plastic down into to catch the guts and stuff we won’t be keeping
• hose and sprayer ready for washing him off before skinning (and a fish sink for washing hands and where my knives will be.)
• 22lr rifle my husband is using for the dispatch. Will have the 9mm handgun on hand in case we need more power.
• butcher guide book I can flip thru if I hit a stall out in the gutting and parting process
• we are going to build the hoisting rack with a 4x6 lag bolted onto two trees and a bunch of eye hooks bolted on it for hanging the gambrel (and then tying off to the tree)
• a bon fire pit going to ward flies away

Ok… what else yall lol my husband will be doing the shot and stick, we will be working together to get him moved, hoisted, and ready. Then I’ll likely take over for the skinning / cleaning part, and then we will be working together on getting the primal cuts done. Once he’s parted into primal cuts it’ll be a 24 hour chill down on ice in the coolers to firm up, and then the next day bring the cooler into the kitchen to part out the rest/cuts and vac-pack then put him in the fridge for the week to wet age.

I need some hype yall, tips tricks recommendations etc. I’ve been watching YouTube of ppl’s process both production and wild boar processing (mostly so I can figure out how to work around his bits bc most videos of meat pigs it’s a sow or barrow!) Nervous mostly worried about mishaps, but excited.