The guy we purchased the pigs from came over yesterday. He said the pigs look great and we could butcher them now if want. Although he said if it were him he would wait another 2 weeks to get a really good chop out of them. So the countdown begins! We have 2 weeks to find our butcher (which he recommended a good one) and the biggest most important thing to find some one to buy our other pig to cover the cost of the one we keep. He said we are looking at about $1 per pound hanging weight, plus the cost of butcher. So we hope to get about $300 or a little more. That will work perfect for us!
Oh and on a funny note....apparently he said we have 2 boys (brothers). Not a boy and a girl...poor black one has had an identity crisis all this time.
I know nothing about pig butchering, but had a question----Is it just too hard to do yourself? Is this something that you'd like to learn how to do in the future, or is that too much of a specialized skill?
ReplyDeleteJust curious. I'm actually vegetarian, so the question is not for me, but for the rest of my meat-eating family!
Take care, Tommy
Tommy...We looked into doing it ourselves, but it requires "scraping" them before you get the the butcher part. That is tedious job from what we have read and requires boiling water to remove or scrape the skin off. You either pour it over and scrape sections or submerge the whole animal and scrape. We may look into doing it the future to save costs, but for now we felt it was a bit much to handle for our first time. Thanks for the comments!
ReplyDeleteYour pigs look great! I miss my pigs (boo hoo) we used to raise 3 of them at a time on mostly goat milk and cornmeal , veg scraps too, and then sell 2 of them to buy the hay for our goats for next year. Can't beat pork raised on goat milk! very tender.
ReplyDeleteWe also had butchered our own a couple times. Shoot in forehead, slit throat immediately to bleed out, then hoisted them up on a big tripod and skinned them. But, needs to be done in the cool weather if you do yourself b/c need to get the body heat out immediately.
Only need the hot water thing if you do like my grandpa did and leave the skin on. But, needs to be done in the cool weather if you do yourself b/c need to get the body heat out immediately.
Also , nothing like canned pork, if you want some for sandwich meat. Oh my, I want a pig again ......
PS Also we were home-schooling daughter at the time.... a let her make a balloon out of the pig bladder (after washing it out good of course) like Laura Ingalls did in Little House on the Prairie. Such fun, those days :)
ReplyDeleteSunny...I had no idea you didn't have to scrape! I'll have to let the hubby know. Thanks for all they great info.
ReplyDelete