# Eating Sick or Injured pigs



## ErikaMay (Feb 28, 2013)

So I've been dealing with a pig at slaughter weight that hasn't been doing great. I slaughtered her about as soon as she started getting "sick" at one farmers recommendation instead of hitting her with antibiotics since I was under the crazy impression that if it was still walking around it was socially acceptable to eat a "sick" pig judging from comments by people here and other places. Well imagine my suprise after the deed was done that my other friend helping me expressed horror i would eat something "sick."

In this case it was walking around although crooked, still social, regained its appetite, had no fever, normal bowel movements. Clearly she felt cruddy, but was doing her best. I did the best post mortem i could given the situation (my friend gutted, i inspected) and the organs were all very clean, liver was normal, kidneys looked good, heart was normal, though it appeared she had a small puncture wound somewhere in her upper gut, possibly from glass or a small metal shard. Thus, starting off with vomiting, moving to abdominal discomfort in the left side. No visable signs of infection. (before I assumed ear infection, but that didn't seem to fit the other signs)

To me her organs indicated she was fit to eat because it wasn't an virus or infection, but rather injury. one friend insisted he would never eat anything "sick" rather let it get better (in this case it wouldn't) or die.

The usda inspects sick animals, and I believe even lets "downer cows" be consumed. Sooooo.....*ahem*

What is the line for consumeable and not? Where do you draw the line? when is an animal no longer salable? 


discuss!


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## Zimobog (Aug 31, 2013)

Your hog sounds like a fine freezer addition. Why stress?


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## Skandi (Oct 21, 2014)

If you know the cause of the sickness and it's physical then I really wouldn't worry. I wouldn't be so keen to eat an animal with a mystery illness but one where you know the cause. no problem to me, my FiL lost a calf last week to lightning, and when I suggested it would make good food/dog food they looked at me as if I was mad! (although it was insured the insurance has a $1.2k excess, way more than it was worth)


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## gerold (Jul 18, 2011)

I do not butcher sick animals of any kind. Something caused the pig to be sick. Repeat i do not eat sick animals and i do not feed sick animals to my dogs or any other animal. 

If the USDA lets sick animals be used for any kind of food that is wrong. 
One reason i raise my own animals is i can sell and also consume strong healthy animals.

Best,
Gerold.


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## Muleman (Nov 8, 2013)

To me it is a judgement call if you decide to eat an animal knowing there is an issue. I am not saying I would never eat one with some issues, just saying each person will have to judge for themselves what is acceptable to them and what is not. There is risk to everything we do, we need to make good judgements based on sound information.

Now, concerning "Selling" as injured or sick animal. I myself would never do that in any case. There are many issues here such as liability being a big one. However, the most important to me is my reputation. You never want to risk damaging your reputation by letting it get out that you knowingly are selling meat from sick or injured animals. The same as you would not want to feed garbage from a nursing home or food waste from other places and let it get out that you were doing so.

Now just to be clear, in no way am I saying to do these things and simply keep it quiet. am saying never do these things, so there is never a chance of any false information getting out about your operation.

Of course a lot of this also depends on the market you are after, if high quality high end customers are your goal, definitely stay away from questionable practices, if you are simply taking them to the sale barn or selling them at discount prices, this may not matter to you??

BTW, I do not think many people will be satisfied and see justification in a practice simply because the USDA says it is ok. The USDA has many questionable practices. I would not base my animal care and practices on too many USDA recommendations myself, especially when it comes to high quality products. Remember their goals are much different than the average small farmer. The USDA's goal is to feed the masses with as much factory farmed product as hey can. Our goal as small farmers should be to feed a few with a high quality product based on our limited resources and abilities for production, in a clean healthy environment. These are two different goals indeed!!


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## ErikaMay (Feb 28, 2013)

Say your feeder pig has a limp that won't go away but everything else is fine: toss it, eat it, or okay for sale?

just curious where everyones line is.


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## ErikaMay (Feb 28, 2013)

Also: what percentage of your livestock do you folks end up loose and just tossing? 



(Ironically, person who freaked out about eating an injured pig throws his dead animals to the pigs. hello diseased and wormy herd. each to his own...)


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## barnbilder (Jul 1, 2005)

A pig "walking crooked" could have had listeria. Although listeria is one of those ever present organisms an animal that was symptomatic would be shedding abnormally high levels. If that was the case you would need to cook it REALLY good. That is usually a progressive and usually fatal disease. Unless you know what is wrong with them, you don't know the biology of whether it is safe or not. If for your own consumption, it is completely up to you, nobody else has to eat it.


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## Gravytrain (Mar 2, 2013)

ErikaMay said:


> Say your feeder pig has a limp that won't go away but everything else is fine: toss it, eat it, or okay for sale?
> 
> just curious where everyones line is.


If I know the limp is a foot or ankle issue, fine for sale. However, if it could be a ham or hip issue, I'd have to rethink that. It happens so infrequently that I'd probably just eat that pig or that half.


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## mekasmom (Jan 19, 2010)

ErikaMay said:


> Say your feeder pig has a limp that won't go away but everything else is fine: toss it, eat it, or okay for sale?
> 
> just curious where everyones line is.



I would feed it out and eat it. A limp can be a leg injury rather than a disease. And heat kills viruses and bacteria.


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## J.T.M. (Mar 2, 2008)

If you have ever ate store bought pork , you've ate sick or injured pork ...


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## Lazy J (Jan 2, 2008)

J.T.M. said:


> If you have ever ate store bought pork , you've ate sick or injured pork ...


Really!!!


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## J.T.M. (Mar 2, 2008)

Lazy J said:


> Really!!!


 As someone who has worked in big ag for about 20 years I can say without hesitation " Absolutely " !!! 


:hand: J.T.M. 
who has managed a 1.4 million bird layer site , 5 k head sow site and is now managing 22 k head hog finish site ...


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## Lazy J (Jan 2, 2008)

J.T.M. said:


> As someone who has worked in big ag for about 20 years I can say without hesitation " Absolutely " !!!
> 
> 
> :hand: J.T.M.
> who has managed a 1.4 million bird layer site , 5 k head sow site and is now managing 22 k head hog finish site ...


You may have managed those facilities but your assessment that all animals raised in modern farms are sick and injured is simply hyperbole and false. Push your agenda if you must, but this kind of comment erodes your credibility.


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## ErikaMay (Feb 28, 2013)

Lazy J, I don't think he said "all of the animals are sick" Just....that sick animals are allowed for consumption. 

I went and read the USDA regulations and there are allowances for sickness if its localized. X% of supermarket meat has some sort of "sickness"


Was in whole foods tonight when i saw their meat sign said, "no antiboiotics, ever!" and it really bothered me. I asked them what happens with an animal that gets sick and they said its taken out of the supply chain (either sold to a non organic farm or killed and tossed). It seems wrong and wasteful that a pig with a UTI would be left to deal with it, shipped out or killed and tossed so they could say "no antibiotics!"


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## Zimobog (Aug 31, 2013)

Good lawd folks. The fact I even have to think about it means I'm better off eating my own raising.


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## highlands (Jul 18, 2004)

Sick and injured can mean many things.
Many 'sick or injured' are still perfectly good meat.
An example is a hernia. A herniating pig is not a good pig to raise but it is fine meat.
Another example is a broken leg. A broken leg may eliminate the animal from the gene pool but it is still fine meat.
There are some diseases that should eliminate the animal from the food chain. The USDA inspectors watch for these and tag & condemn those. I've stood on the line and watched them do their job. The system works.

Yes there are failures in the system when some people like at the place out in California purposefully deceive the system. But that is a only a microscopically small percentage. There will be criminals in all fields of work, and out of work. That is the reality of the world.

If you want maximum control, raise, slaughter, butcher, smoke , cook and serve it yourself.


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## barnbilder (Jul 1, 2005)

As per the "no antibiotics ever" statement, I think that if producers that are supplying those markets have an animal that needs antibiotics, they are allowed to use antibiotics on that animal, and then market that particular animal in a different way. After the slaughter withdrawal, of course. I was concerned myself and did a little research and this was what I was told. Suppose you are raising five steers for an antibiotic free market, and one of them gets pinkeye. You treat him and sell him at market like everyone else, and then you deliver 4 steers for your antibiotic, natural organic or whatever market. If you planned for a certain amount of special cases, you could still meat your orders. Most animals never need antibiotics, but those that do, really need them bad.


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## gerold (Jul 18, 2011)

barnbilder said:


> As per the "no antibiotics ever" statement, I think that if producers that are supplying those markets have an animal that needs antibiotics, they are allowed to use antibiotics on that animal, and then market that particular animal in a different way. After the slaughter withdrawal, of course. I was concerned myself and did a little research and this was what I was told. Suppose you are raising five steers for an antibiotic free market, and one of them gets pinkeye. You treat him and sell him at market like everyone else, and then you deliver 4 steers for your antibiotic, natural organic or whatever market. If you planned for a certain amount of special cases, you could still meat your orders. Most animals never need antibiotics, but those that do, really need them bad.


http://www.ksre.ksu.edu/bookstore/pubs/MF2042.pdf

I have been doing a lot of reading on the use of different medication that the big farms use to keep the butcher hogs from getting to sick to butcher. The USDA have new guide lines that they publish all the time. The different states also put out their own guide lines about different medications that can be used and withdrawal periods from medications before butchering.


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## Muleman (Nov 8, 2013)

Ahh, so now we see one of the problems in relying on federal and state regulations to provide a healthy meal alternative to actually becoming involved with where our food comes from and the actual production of it. What you "think" you are getting, may be what you "Were" getting to begin with, but then the regulations change and now what you "are" getting is not what you "were" getting. The rules change all the time in the big goberment agencies. What was "safe" last year may not be safe this year, and what was "Not" allowed last year may be allowed this year. 

Better to buy local if possible, so you can know who you are buying from and actually go and see what they are or are not actually doing to your food.


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## gerold (Jul 18, 2011)

Muleman said:


> Ahh, so now we see one of the problems in relying on federal and state regulations to provide a healthy meal alternative to actually becoming involved with where our food comes from and the actual production of it. What you "think" you are getting, may be what you "Were" getting to begin with, but then the regulations change and now what you "are" getting is not what you "were" getting. The rules change all the time in the big goberment agencies. What was "safe" last year may not be safe this year, and what was "Not" allowed last year may be allowed this year.
> 
> Better to buy local if possible, so you can know who you are buying from and actually go and see what they are or are not actually doing to your food.


Most consumers don't know what is in the meat they buy.

Some pork for consumers have a different withdraw period from some of the anti-b meds that is fed the factory hogs. Depends on what the pork has been classed as. Some pork is mixed with other foods and have a different withdraw period from meds than others. They change the different anti-b meds. ever so often because the pigs body become used to it and it doesn/t do them any good.

In the case of penicillin and some other drugs for one class withdraw is 15 days and another is no days withdraw before slaughter. 

I guess they know what they are doing


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## ErikaMay (Feb 28, 2013)

Zimobog said:


> Good lawd folks. The fact I even have to think about it means I'm better off eating my own raising.


So, if you raised a pig for 7 months (I actually had more time invested because i run my pigs farrow to finish, so more like a year invested in the pig) and right before slaughter something happened, you'd call it a loss and toss it?

I can't fathom. just can't. Then again...im stubborn and still trying to repair my $900 truck on my own. :ashamed: its taking a while.

I played with the guts a bit more and found where i think something punctured the gut. Little bit of coagulated blood, no pus, no signs of infection or inflammation of the local area. I have a section at the butcher shop and having them inspect, too, but I think this was an internal injury. meat should be fine for personal consumption.

I also found 6 piglets a few weeks away from being born. Just like her mother little Lolita got knocked up at 5 months! too bad that line had such a terrible conformation..long bodies but poor muscling, thin loins and slow growing. Man, they got pregnant easy and early.


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## Zimobog (Aug 31, 2013)

ErikaMay said:


> So, if you raised a pig for 7 months (I actually had more time invested because i run my pigs farrow to finish, so more like a year invested in the pig) and right before slaughter something happened, you'd call it a loss and toss it?
> 
> I can't fathom. just can't. Then again...im stubborn and still trying to repair my $900 truck on my own. :ashamed: its taking a while.
> 
> ...


I'd eat it if I'd raised it, yeah. Or if I shot it (I'm talking about wild game here). One year my partner shot a moose and after getting him home and doing all the processing on the first quarter I started on the liver, where I found discovered a tennis ball sized pus-filled cyst. I accidentally cut into it while slicing the liver. It stunk so bad I tossed the liver but kept the rest of the meat. Aside from the normal parasites one finds in moose like a few worms in the legs, I deemed it good enough for me given the amount of labor I put into getting it home. It was not the best moose ever. I chalk the taste up to his diet. Everything else was within acceptable norms for wild game in my opinion.


I think at that point in the discussion I wasn't commenting on your OP about the sow, but on comments on meat that I didn't raise myself like store-bought.


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## ErikaMay (Feb 28, 2013)

ah, sorry I took your comment to be like a couple other people I've talked to that any thought of eating something mildly questionable was a terrible idea. On farmer suggested if money was an issue then go get food stamps. :/ Somehow "waste not" doesn't occur to people. Even better someone who called me disgusting for thinking about eating said pig later was all excited to pick up a 3X sausage pizza for dinner....*sigh*

You point about wild game is very interesting. How often do hunters kill "sick" animals not knowing it and still consume it? I read somewhere that actual cases of trichonisis in the US has been more common from wild game than pigs. The actual number of cases stemming from pork even in the 60's was surprisingly low considering how its talked about.


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## Muleman (Nov 8, 2013)

Ericka, You made the point very well, most consumers are in the same boat "They simply DO NOT KNOW? What is the old saying "What you don't know can't hurt you" I think that is how most people are. they don't know, and they don't want to know!!

*How often do hunters kill "sick" animals*_ not knowing_ *it and still consume it?*


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## Zimobog (Aug 31, 2013)

ErikaMay said:


> ah, sorry I took your comment to be like a couple other people I've talked to that any thought of eating something mildly questionable was a terrible idea. On farmer suggested if money was an issue then go get food stamps. :/ Somehow "waste not" doesn't occur to people. Even better someone who called me disgusting for thinking about eating said pig later was all excited to pick up a 3X sausage pizza for dinner....*sigh*
> 
> You point about wild game is very interesting. How often do hunters kill "sick" animals not knowing it and still consume it? I read somewhere that actual cases of trichonisis in the US has been more common from wild game than pigs. The actual number of cases stemming from pork even in the 60's was surprisingly low considering how its talked about.


Well everyone is allowed their opinion but you won't catch me suggesting anyone get on food stamps.

Triconosis happens here with bear and walrus mainly. 

Hunting here is pretty rough. You're hunting in bad weather and get very few chances so you shoot the first legal one you see. I laugh at those lower 48 hunting shows on cable where they sit there in the blind passing up bucks at the feeder until the one they want comes along. Lucky them! :thumb:


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## myheaven (Apr 14, 2006)

My 1200 lbs boar had a stroke 3 weeks before his butcher date. We butchered him and ate him. He was fine eating. Amazing brats.


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