336 Types and Market Classes of Live Stock 



The type of hogs found in the several countries varies considerably. 

 In the United States the fat or lard type is produced almost exclusively, 

 this being particularly true of the corn belt. The stock yards of this 

 country receive practically no bacon hogs; the St. Paul market is some- 

 thing of an exception, although the number received there is compara- 

 tively small. For this reason we shall give more attention to the fat 

 carcass than to the bacon carcass. 



Slaughtering and dressing. — When the hog enters the packing 

 house, and this applies to both the lard hog and the bacon hog, he is 

 driven into a small pen adjacent to a large, slowly revolving wheel, 

 called the "hog hoist," pictured in this chapter. A chain is fastened 

 about a hind leg and hooked into a link on the wheel. The hog is 

 raised as the wheel turns, until he reaches an overhead inclined rail 



Fig. 124.— The hog hoist. 



from which he is suspended and along which he passes to the "sticker." 

 After bleeding, the hog is dropped into a scalding vat in which the water 

 is kept at a temperature of 142 to 144 degrees F. This loosens the 

 hair and scurf. He is then hooked onto a chain which carries him 

 through a scraping machine, after which he is again suspended from an 

 overhead rail and any spots of hair missed by the machine are scraped 

 by hand and the hair inside the ears and about the face is singed off 

 with a gas torch. These operations and the subsequent ones necessary 

 to complete the dressing process are briefly as follows: (1) Hoisting, 

 (2) bleeding, (3) scalding, (4) scraping, (5) singeing, (6) removal of 

 head, (7) disemboweling, (8) splitting, (9) removal of leaf fat and 

 kidneys, (10) facing hams, ^ and (11) cooling. The carcass remains in 



^This consists of smoothing and shaping the ham by trimming off excessive or 

 uneven fat surrounding the split surface or face of the ham. 



