A Day at the Piggery

As I have mentioned before there is a piggery here on the mission.

While I have been here I have really enjoyed getting a chance to work with the pigs since I have never worked with farm animals before. Right now we have 46 pigs, with more on the way because some are pregnant.

The piggery is used to teach the students who are doing an agriculture internship here. The students clean the pig pens and feed them twice a day. The pigs a eat pigfeed, mixed with salt, water, leaves, and any leftovers from the kitchen. The past few days I have gone to the piggery with one of guys on the mission, Nupuwo, to see how the piggery is run. I have even gotten to help feed them.

The piggery is run as a micro business; meaning the pigs are raised to be slaughtered and sold for the meat. Every other Thursday the pigs are butchered, on Friday the meat is cut up into specific orders, and on Saturday we deliver it.

The past two times I have watched the guys butcher the pigs. It is definitely weird, but at the same time it is interesting to see the whole process. Despite the multiple offers for me to help butcher a pig, I just watch. After the pig is dead, dehaired, washed, and gutted, the carcass is cut into one of the 6 cuts the mission sells (shoulder, leg, loin, cube meat, ribs, and sausage). After the meat is weighed it is wrapped up in Saran wrap and put in the freezer to dry out.

For the two nights prior to delivering the pork, we run a small generator to power the freezers. They have to remain on to keep the meat from spoiling. The mission runs a large generator to power the entire mission—but when we just need the freezers, we use a much smaller generator to conserve fuel. The only issue with the small generator is it is very noisy. Falling asleep at night can be quite difficult—but it’s worth it since the butchering is a big process and it is only one or two nights every two weeks.

I have only been on one delivery so far and it was cool to see how the whole piggery business is run from start to finish. Another plus of the deliveries is getting to meet people from all over the world (most deliveries go to foreigners) and I have been able to see more of Liberia.
I’ve really enjoyed seeing how—with everyone’s help—the whole process comes together.