The porker snuffles at the ground.
It's on death row, but it doesn't know it.
Gently the pig is coaxed into position and then the trigger is pulled, the bolt has gone through the head and it is thrashing around.
In goes the knife.
Soon it will be turned into sausages, chops, blood pudding and pork belly and despatched to the owner.
The Southland home kill business is booming.
It is a popular way to get fresh meat from an animal you have either raised or picked out yourself.
Isla Bank Butchery owner Craig Hamilton is confident enough in the future of the industry that he has invested in a pig kill facility.
It is built behind the butchery, but the premises are separate.
Pigs killed in the facility cannot be sold in the shop.
Mr Hamilton said the time was right to offer a home kill service.
"We had a big factory here, an empty space that wasn't getting used," he said.
"We got the ball rolling and we just sort of carried on."
It's early days in the Isla Bank operation, so experienced slaughterman Kevin Herbert is assisting Mr Hamilton's employee, Tim Ellison.
They are the ones who perform the act itself.
Among the pigs are two kunekunes.
They require a different slaughtering technique to most pigs, Mr Herbert says. Hitting them between the eyes just hurts their noses.
You have to aim higher to hit the brain.
Once they are killed they are winched into a scalding machine.
This cost Mr Hamilton $40,000.
It was imported from Germany, where the best ones come from, he says. Germans are big fans of sausages.
The pig is lowered into position and the lid closes. It takes three minutes at 60 degrees Celsius to largely get rid of the hair.
After that it's a relatively simple matter of trimming what is left of the hair and blowtorching off the bristles.
It will sit in the freezer for two days
before being processed. Several other Southlanders are offering a similar service.
Nigel and Sharleen Loveridge run Loveridge Homekill in Edendale.
For them, business has been getting busier every year since they set up - with nothing more than a bath in a trailer - four years ago.
They are killing up to 2000 pigs a year and need to expand. They kill and scald the animals before sending them to a butcher to be cut up.
They have their own pig tales to tell.
Kunekunes occasionally appear on their killing floor - often as the result of a marriage breakup, the pet pig will end up on death row.
Ad Feedback ads not by this site"A lot of them have names," Mr Loveridge says.
One pig decided it wanted to go home, and made a break for it.
Mr Loveridge travels to farms sometimes to kill big pigs - but the bigger the pig, the lower the margin.
Although Mr Loveridge charges by the kilogram, big pigs take more time. Money is wasted growing a big pig because it doesn't taste any good, he said.
The couple pride themselves on their scalding - only older pigs should be skinned, Mr Loveridge says, because they are only good for sausages.
It's a worry for independent home-killers like the Loveridges that Mr Hamilton has branched out, because he can cut out the middleman.
However, he said the Loveridges should still do well and he didn't have to process the pigs himself. They could still be sent to other butcheries.
Whether there will be enough business for everyone remains to be seen
southlandtimes
Source: Argentine Beef Packers S.A.
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