EEPORT OF THE BUREAU OF ANIMAL INDUSTRY. 367 

 SLAUGHTERING AND PACKING HOGS. 



When a drove of hogs have been purchased for a packing-house, 

 and all the preliminary obligations of health inspection, weighing, 

 etc., have been complied with, they are driven up an inclined plane 

 to a covered elevated run- way leading to the pens of the particular 

 packing-house which is to be their final destination. Here they are 

 given time to rest and cool off, and become acquainted with their 

 new surroundings before entering upon their further adventures. 

 After sufficient interval has elapsed for this purpose usually from 

 twenty-four to forty-eight hours during which time they are fed 

 with corn and carefully watered, a man, known as the "shackler," 

 enters the pens, and, lifting a hind leg of each unsuspecting animal, 

 slips over it a stout oval iron ring, which lodges just above the joint. 

 Into this ring, at the proper time, he inserts the smaller end of a 

 double hook attached to a chain. This is quickly drawn up by ma- 

 chinery, and lifts the astonished and protesting hog, head down- 

 wards, 8 or 10 feet from the ground. The larger end of the hook is 

 thrown across an inclined steel rod or " run," and a gentle push sends 

 the hog sliding along this rod to a platform where stands the "sticker," 

 knife in hand. With marvelous celerity frequently at the rate of 

 eight or ten a minute he plunges the sharp-pointed, keen-edged 

 weapon into the animal's gullet, and makes a longitudinal upward 

 cut, 2 or 3 inches in length, from which the blood immediately gushes 

 like water from a rain-spout. A touch from the sticker's hand sends 

 the dying hog sliding a few feet further. There it is allowed to 

 hang, squealing with scarcely abated vigor, for about five minutes, 

 until all the blood has drained from its body. Then, almost before 

 the last gasp of life has left its quivering carcass, it is plunged off 

 the end of the rod into a cauldron of boiling water, in which it is 

 immersed just long enough to loosen the hair from its hide. It is 

 lifted out of the scalding- vat by ah ingenious automatic contrivance 

 and landed on the draining-table, where one man, if it be winter 

 time, plucks the bristles with which at that season of the year it is 

 adorned, and another man, standing on the opposite side of the table, 

 connects the carcass with an endless chain, which lands it against a 

 set of revolving vertical wheels, with flexible broad steel flanges pro- 

 jecting from their outer rims. This machine, in a very few seconds, 

 scrapes every vestige of hair from the accessible parts of the hide. 

 As the hog emerges from this treatment it is thrown upon a long 

 table, where, from first to last, sixteen men, eight on each side, await 

 its coming. Two of them shave from under the arm-pits the few 

 hairs which the scraping wheel has been unable to reach. The next 

 man, at one stroke, severs the head nearly from the body, leaving 

 it hanging only by a shred. His assistant meanwhile has cut two 

 slots in the hind legs and thrust a "gambol stick"' into the holes 

 thus made. He slips one end of a double hook round this gambol 

 stick and slides the other end over the run, and with a gentle shove 

 starts the hog again upon its travels. Ten minutes have sufficed to 

 transform a well-fed, contented hog into a headless, hairless carcass. 

 All the time it is running the gauntlet a stream of cold water is con- 

 tinuously pouring down upon the animal, and washing away all 

 traces of the cutting and slashing to which it is subjected. The next 

 man opens the animal and takes out the paunch and intestines, etc. , 

 while another removes the leaf fat, subsequently to be used in mak- 

 ing "neutral" for oleomargarine, as hereafter explained. A little 



