'Don't eat what you can't meet': Homesteaders teach community how to raise dinner

Homesteaders in Rockport are helping residents in the area raise and butcher their own pigs, making local food easier to access in the community.

In 2012 Rose Crow Leonard moved to her Rockport property in Westmorland County, just south of Sackville. She moved from the West Coast to live off the land and become more self-sufficient.

In British Columbia, she used to get a local farmer to raise her animals and hoped to do the same here.

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"There wasn't really anyone to raise the animal so we said, 'We'll raise it ourselves,'" said Leonard.

Once friends and neighbours saw the quality of her meat, she decided to offer the same service to the wider community.

Rockport residents are raising and butchering their own pigs

7 years ago

Duration 0:37

Homesteaders in Rockport are helping friends and neighbours raise, eviscerate and butcher their own pigs to eat.

She lives by the motto: "Don't eat what you can't meet."

This year, Leonard raised four pigs for families in the area. She does it free of charge, but gets satisfaction out of helping others become more self-sufficient. 

"Our goal is to get these young farmers to do their own animals and to raise their own meat from their families."

How it works

People using the service will turn over a piglet to Leonard to raise. When it comes time for slaughter, she kills the animal as quickly and humanely as possible, then the pig's owners step in to help with the rest of the process.

Kailey LeDrew and Matt Douglas spent one October morning butchering their pig, Meatloaf.

LeDrew has been involved with her swine since the beginning. She helped wrestle the piglets off the truck when they first arrived at Leonard's farm. 

"I was coming here every couple of weeks … feeding them, watering them, helping them out so we kind of saw the whole process."

But sawing through the bone of an animal she helped raise is not how LeDrew spends a typical morning.

"It's strange, I've never done anything like this before." 

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She said knowing how well Meatloaf was cared for and the respect Leonard has for the animals, helped her tackle the conflicting feelings she had about slaughtering the pig.

Her partner, Matt Douglas said every step of the evisceration and slaughter process, brought a new experience for him too.

"From getting the hair off, to gutting it, and pulling the guts out … it's been a lot but it's been pretty rewarding."

Bringing home the bacon

The duo ended up leaving Leonard's with roasts, pork chops, hunks of fat for pastry, plenty of meat that will be turned into bacon and a pail of cast offs that will be turned into sausages. They hope to freeze, pressure can, smoke, air seal and preserve enough pork to last them until next year's pig is ready for slaughter.

"I haven't tasted it yet, but I'm sure it tastes delicious,"said LeDrew.

Leonard said it sounds more gruesome than it is in practice.

"It's like a science class, there's nothing gross about it," she said. "I'd say, 'This is the liver, this is the bile sack and you have to be careful with this.'"

Not far away from the butcher shop, is a fenced in area where Blanket the pig, eats spoiled peppers and cucumbers amongst the trees. She's the last of four pigs raised to be slaughtered and eaten.

Leonard said killing the animals isn't easy,

"I go into the zone, and try to forget that I was reading poetry to the pig the day before," she said.