|
Quoted:
Quoted:
FWIW, and mostly because this is where I keep track of everything, our 1-and-1/2 pigs have yielded 63 pounds cased Italian sausage, 20 pounds bulk breakfast sausage, 23 pounds bacon, 70 pounds ham, and 45 pounds of chops. OK, now I'm hungry! Just got home from the auction. Two sows at 580 and 590 went for $185 and $220. Pigs from 30-100# went from $34 up to $48. Higher than they had been. I came home empty, but another in two weeks. |
|
Quoted:
Two sows at 580 and 590 went for $185 and $220. Pigs from 30-100# went from $34 up to $48. Wonder if those old sows would make decent ground pork? I'm guessing it would be OK but not stellar. Feeder pigs here, as of last week, were selling for ~$0.66 a pound which is cheaper than I can raise them. 
The pork isn't as good though......more of that "other white meat" crap. 
|
|
Guy I know sold some of his old sows for $0.60/lb last week and was happy.
A few of the pigs looked very poor: I always figured if an Amish is selling something...... 
Prices are higher here than last year. But 3 years ago, feeders were about $1 /lb. Peak pork???? I plan on checking with a woman I've bought from before this coming week. If not, I'll hit the next auction. |
|
Quoted:
A few of the pigs looked very poor: I always figured if an Amish is selling something......
La Touristas see them as great stewards of the land, but they can be terribly hard on animals. I remember doing some business on an Amish farm years and years ago. The owner was forking some corn silage over the fence to a driving horse. I asked him if that was the horse's entire ration. "Well, every now and then he finds an ear of corn in there." I'll never forget that exchange. How many hogs are you gonna have this winter? |
|
I'll probably just get two again.
We were hard pressed to eat all 3 last time we went that route. 2 worked well, about thru 1/2 of it, and need room for deer. 
One of my brothers had planned on 6-8 as well, but he's gotten so busy, that ain't happening this time around. (he has access to LOTS of free food- I picked up about 500lbs outdated dog/cat food Tuesday, so I'm ready) Most Amish are hard on EVERYTHING, and many use their Amishness (?) as a brand name/marketing ploy. They know their market, that's for sure, and play it for all it's worth. |
|
Quoted:
Quoted:
A few of the pigs looked very poor: I always figured if an Amish is selling something......
La Touristas see them as great stewards of the land, but they can be terribly hard on animals. I remember doing some business on an Amish farm years and years ago. The owner was forking some corn silage over the fence to a driving horse. I asked him if that was the horse's entire ration. "Well, every now and then he finds an ear of corn in there." I'll never forget that exchange. How many hogs are you gonna have this winter? I carried mail for a while and had a bunch of Amish on my route. They treat their animals horribly. "Beasts of burden" and we were given dominion, and all that.... I think they'll reincarnate as beasts of burden and go to Amish farms. It's a good thing I'm not God. 
ETA: And they treat their animals quite a bit better than they treat their women. 
|
|
No, bought from the same folks I did a few years ago.
Good people. They are ALWAYS $30 for pigs. Just need to pick out the right ones! (seen them from 25# to 70#) Said they have a few more litters back in the woods that they need to catch soon. (I'm SO cheap, I'm still missing the $9-15 feeders at last falls' auctions.) Wormer was meant to be SubQ, but I went a little deep on one.
Sort of had my hands full, and they were NOT very cooperative! We'll see how they like the rye I planted in part of their pen. |
|
Tomorrow is bacon-smoking day. Washed the bellies tonight and blotted them dry. I'm not gonna hang them this year but will let them dry in the frig until I get to them tomorrow. They need to dry so they'll take the smoke.
It's nice having a big pile o' meat on the counter. Hopefully these bacons will turn out nicely. I'm not posting a blow-by-blow of the process as I did that last year, but I'll post some more pics as things go along. 
|
|
I sliced up three of the slabs this morning. Cooked up a bunch of the skinnier slices and vac packed the rest for the freezer.
This bacon cooks differently than store bought bacon as it has less water in it. There's no splatter. It has high sugar content so it burns quickly––gotta pay attention while cooking it. It doesn't wrinkle up like commercial bacon either. This is tasty bacon but on the sweet side. I probably should've balanced it with a bit more pepper. Probably these are the last pics for this year––after bacon, hams are kinda boring.
|
|
That bacon is impressive looking. As always, thanks for sharing.
It looks like I'll be taking my four hogs in this next weekend (the abattoir wants me to deliver them on Sunday afternoon). I've put the last feed in the feeder and I believe they will run out about Friday night or Saturday morning. We'll connect the trailer to their pen on Saturday and feed corn in the trailer. Hopefully that will take care of loading. Feed: With this last load of food in the feeder now, I have fed 3000 lbs at a cost of $540. That's mainly hog finisher and grower with a few bags of corn tossed in for treats. We also fed a lot out of the garden and I've given them about 5 bales of bermuda grass hay. They got a lot of treats with apples and watermellon too. Once we get everything back from the abattoir, I'll make a final post with total costs and price per pound for table ready. I've tracked my try "cash, out of pocket' expenses and also "total cost" which includes my labor, etc. that you would need to know we were selling this commerically. R. |
|
Quoted:
It looks like I'll be taking my four hogs in this next weekend (the abattoir wants me to deliver them on Sunday afternoon). I've put the last feed in the feeder and I believe they will run out about Friday night or Saturday morning. We'll connect the trailer to their pen on Saturday and feed corn in the trailer. Hopefully that will take care of loading. Getting ready to jack that trailer in? Their feed run out yet? Whatever you do, don't let some helpful soul feed 'em Sunday morning. 
|
|
Quoted:
Quoted:
It looks like I'll be taking my four hogs in this next weekend (the abattoir wants me to deliver them on Sunday afternoon). I've put the last feed in the feeder and I believe they will run out about Friday night or Saturday morning. We'll connect the trailer to their pen on Saturday and feed corn in the trailer. Hopefully that will take care of loading. Getting ready to jack that trailer in? Their feed run out yet? Whatever you do, don't let some helpful soul feed 'em Sunday morning.
You have great timing. We just finished up. It was dark when we got done so I don't have pictures yet. We stretched cattle panels from their pen to the tailer and wired them all together. we didn't necessarily want them in the trailer night . . . so we could not keep them out of it. We finally fed them some corn in the trailer just so they would get used to the idea. They are very curious and wanted to see everything new that was "outside" the pen (and in the trailer). I looked in their feeder tonight and I think we're on track to run out of feed tomorrow night or Saturday morning. We won't put any food out on Sunday until after church. The butcher said I'll get a live weight on Sunday and a dressed weight Monday afternoon. Do you keep the skin? They will scrape them and they said some people want them back. I don't figure I'll make kracklins but could I do something with the skin to make dog treats? This has sure been a great experience. R. |
|
Quoted:
Do you keep the skin? They will scrape them and they said some people want them back. I don't figure I'll make kracklins but could I do something with the skin to make dog treats? I never asked for the skin or the ears. Probably should.....probably wouldn't be too hard to smoke a bunch of them for the dog. That's a good idea. 
I'm glad you got your trailer in place a little earlier than you were originally planning. It'll give 'em a little more time to get acclimated. Good luck with things. 
|
|
OK, I spent the afternoon running electric fence with a low impedence controller trying to expand my pigs range from a 16x16 pen with the welded wire hog panels. I ran a single strand of aluminum wire about 16 inches high. I was suprised that the controller, southern states 700, I think 10k volts) only puts out a pulse at maybe one per second+ (you can hear the clicking sound), not a constant electric voltage. Anyways I tried a training wire in the pigs current pen. They eventually learned that so I let them out and eventually coaxed them in and turned on the power. That worked for about 20 second when the pigs decided to just bolt through the fence, with a couple yelps.
So...what am I doing wrong? Should I run three wires? Or is it the pulsed power? |
|
Quoted:
I ran a single strand of aluminum wire about 16 inches high. ........ Should I run three wires? Or is it the pulsed power? I'm guessing that your fence is too high above the hogs' noses. A second wire about 1/2 way up (at 8 inches) may do the trick without going to three wires. You might also try tying ribbons to the fence to make it easier for the hogs to tell where the wire is at. Google for electric fence will show you more options. |
The hogs are at the abattoir now. Loading them was a non-event. We put some watermellons in the front of the trailer. About six seconds later, we shut the door. We had so much extra time that we hosed them off so they would look presentable.
The folks at the abattoir were very calm and kept everything very low stress. They weighed all the hogs with the following numbers: Hampshire - 295 Spotted - 285 Black - 235 Red - 220 I didn't get weights when we picked them up but the hampshire was smaller than the spotted one at that point. He clearly gained the most weight. (the other three were females). They didn't seem as big to me until we unloaded them and saw some of the other wimpy looking hogs that were there. I'll have dressed weights tomorrow afternoon. R. |
|
Hampshire - 295 Spotted - 285 Black - 235 Red - 220 I didn't get weights when we picked them up but the hampshire was smaller than the spotted one at that point. He clearly gained the most weight. (the other three were females). They didn't seem as big to me until we unloaded them and saw some of the other wimpy looking hogs that were there. I'll have dressed weights tomorrow afternoon. Outstanding. 
Always a bit of a letdown when the hogs have gone, isn't it? Great looking hogs and you pegged your weights very nicely. You ought to get ~700 pounds hanging weight from them. Looking forward to the update.
|
|
Quoted:
Thanks for the help. I just googled around and it seems that pigs tend to run through the fence when shocked, rather than just backing back up. I agree, thats a good idea on tying something too the wire, perhaps that bird tape I use for the blueberries? You might consider running a narrow polytape. That way you needn't tie anything to the fence and if a hog blasts through it there's less chance it'll injure itself. |
|
Quoted:
16 inches high. I was suprised that the controller, southern states 700, I think 10k volts) only puts out a pulse at maybe one per second+ (you can hear the clicking sound), not a constant electric voltage. So...what am I doing wrong? Should I run three wires? Or is it the pulsed power? dasu, I have elec controllers going back decades and they all pulse. I only run 1 wire, inside fencing, to keep them from rooting under, but it's only about 4-5" off the ground. If using just elec, I'd run a few strands, one LOW, or better yet, some of the electric mesh stuff. Freemanesq, Hogs look GREAT! |
|
Quoted:
Always a bit of a letdown when the hogs have gone, isn't it? Yes. I have missed them all day. I did take comfort in how well they were treated yesterday. I have been very careful to make sure they were never scared. Their pen looks very empty. The family has been a little low today too. They all enjoyed taking them treats after work. We're discussing getting 6 or 7 in March for the next batch. I'm reaching out to a guy with a dozer to discuss cost of clearing some paths in a woodlot we have. If we figure out the eletric fence part, we'll try woodlot hogs in the spring. I didn't get call call for dressed weight today. I'll try tomorrow. R. |
|
Quoted:
We're discussing getting 6 or 7 in March for the next batch. I'm reaching out to a guy with a dozer to discuss cost of clearing some paths in a woodlot we have. If we figure out the eletric fence part, we'll try woodlot hogs in the spring. If I had a woodlot, I'd definitely consider running some hogs in it. If you have enough acreage you can rotate them through it. Train them to respect a single low hot wire and you should be good. Still have to feed them though. Why do you need to cut paths with a dozer? |
|
Quoted:
Quoted:
We're discussing getting 6 or 7 in March for the next batch. I'm reaching out to a guy with a dozer to discuss cost of clearing some paths in a woodlot we have. If we figure out the eletric fence part, we'll try woodlot hogs in the spring. If I had a woodlot, I'd definitely consider running some hogs in it. If you have enough acreage you can rotate them through it. Train them to respect a single low hot wire and you should be good. Still have to feed them though. Why do you need to cut paths with a dozer? Our woodlot that I'm going to use borders the national forest. I would like to send the dozer around the property line so I can drive the fence line (for many reasons, but the electric fence would use this path too). Some of the interior parts I want to cut are so thick i couldn't get a single low hot wire through now. This would be a great chance to make that part of the farm more accessable. In addition, the interior cut throughs would create three different ajoining woodlots to use to run the hogs. Also having the cut outs would help me deliver water easier. I want to put a waterer and feeder in a central location that would give access to all three woodlots. On a side note, we're building a "water wagon' with one of those 250 gallon square tanks to deliver water to animals that won't have access to a pond. Again, this just gives more options. R. |
|
I called and got dressed weights today.
The hampshire barrow was 295 live weight and 209 dressed The spotted gilt was 285 live weight and 202 dressed The black gilt was 235 live weight and 168 dressed The red gilt was 220 live weight and 152 dressed That works out to about 70% dressed weight. We knew the spotted gilt was a bully and she made sure she kept that up. The butcher said he had to put her in another pen because she would not let the other three eat. He said after that, they had a couple of other late hogs come in so he put them in with her. He said she bit their tails off within 10 minutes. R. |
|
Quoted:
We knew the spotted gilt was a bully and she made sure she kept that up. The butcher said he had to put her in another pen because she would not let the other three eat. He said after that, they had a couple of other late hogs come in so he put them in with her. He said she bit their tails off within 10 minutes. We were spoiled by having a bunch of "nice" hogs this year. It sounds like you had one that wasn't so nice. It's hard to explain to folks who haven't been around them what an aggressive hog is like to handle.
|
|
Quoted:
Quoted:
We knew the spotted gilt was a bully and she made sure she kept that up. The butcher said he had to put her in another pen because she would not let the other three eat. He said after that, they had a couple of other late hogs come in so he put them in with her. He said she bit their tails off within 10 minutes. We were spoiled by having a bunch of "nice" hogs this year. It sounds like you had one that wasn't so nice. It's hard to explain to folks who haven't been around them what an aggressive hog is like to handle.
She was nice to people - just not hogs. To me it seemed like a dominance think like dogs do. I'm ready to start cooking when they get back home. Mmmmm. R. |
|
I am still feeding 'Pickles' every day. She finally got over her aversion to corn. She still prefers table scraps and protein is her favorite treat. Bones, skin, fat, anything that is protein she feeds on first.
After that, she eats vegetables, coffee grinds, and finally soured corn mixed with sweet feed. She has still not gotten 'gentle' and will charge the fence when I am standing there. It's odd, because she has never been taunted, teased or harassed. Just born wild and has no interest in becoming a pet. She is fat as a tick and I will probably kill her in late February. I have taken more pics of her, but the pics don't seem to show her true size. She is barrel shaped. Not a long body, and round, very round. I think she has reached her max size other than fattening, and she is holding her weight even through winter. But, she is also eating 3 quarts, or more, of soured corn eat day as well. TRG |
|
Quoted:
<snip> I have taken more pics of her, but the pics don't seem to show her true size. She is barrel shaped. Not a long body, and round, very round. I think she has reached her max size other than fattening, and she is holding her weight even through winter. But, she is also eating 3 quarts, or more, of soured corn eat day as well. How much do you think she weighs now? |
|
Quoted:
Quoted:
<snip> I have taken more pics of her, but the pics don't seem to show her true size. She is barrel shaped. Not a long body, and round, very round. I think she has reached her max size other than fattening, and she is holding her weight even through winter. But, she is also eating 3 quarts, or more, of soured corn eat day as well. How much do you think she weighs now? I put her down yesterday. I think she will be about 200-225lbs. I rendered lard from her today. I have 2 gallons of lard and 4lbs of cracklins. The lard weighs 9lbs per gallon. I ended up with 2.5 gallons. So, a 20+/-lbs of rendered fat. Her belly fat was thick enough that I decided to make bacon from it. Each belly slab weighed in @ 6.5lbs. It is now down to 12lbs total from curing. The hams were smaller than I expected. They only weighed 6lbs each. Each slab of ribs weighed 5lbs. And these are the best looking feral ribs I've ever seen. She produced an 'average' amount of feral hog meat. Nothing about feeding her for the last year changed her basic, small, frame. However, the fat on her was hard to believe. I normally toss the ribs away on a feral, but hers had 1-2" thick layers of meat and fat. I trimmed an inch of fat, and saved the ribs for the bbq. If I had shot her, in the wild, she would have been about 180lbs. The year of easy living added fat, lots of fat, but not real difference in anything else. She was difficult to clean. Thin skin, and greasy. I left several pounds of fat on the hide. It was just wasted. If I do it again, I will not wait as long to kill the hog. Lard is cheap in the store. And I will not name a hog. Made it too much like putting down a pet. I've killed alot of creatures over the years... I put down my own dog once, but shooting this damn pig was even tougher. Oil/lard 20lbs, bacon @10lbs, Hams 12lbs, Ribs 10lbs, shoulders 8lbs, Assorted odd cuts (spine/hips) 10lbs, 2lb of liver. Total of about 50lbs of meat with bones, 20lbs of oil. TRG |
|
Quoted:
I put her down yesterday. I think she will be about 200-225lbs. I rendered lard from her today. I have 2 gallons of lard and 4lbs of cracklins. The lard weighs 9lbs per gallon. I ended up with 2.5 gallons. So, a 20+/-lbs of rendered fat. Her belly fat was thick enough that I decided to make bacon from it. Each belly slab weighed in @ 6.5lbs. It is now down to 12lbs total from curing. The hams were smaller than I expected. They only weighed 6lbs each. Each slab of ribs weighed 5lbs. And these are the best looking feral ribs I've ever seen. She produced an 'average' amount of feral hog meat. Nothing about feeding her for the last year changed her basic, small, frame. However, the fat on her was hard to believe. I normally toss the ribs away on a feral, but hers had 1-2" thick layers of meat and fat. I trimmed an inch of fat, and saved the ribs for the bbq. If I had shot her, in the wild, she would have been about 180lbs. The year of easy living added fat, lots of fat, but not real difference in anything else. She was difficult to clean. Thin skin, and greasy. I left several pounds of fat on the hide. It was just wasted. If I do it again, I will not wait as long to kill the hog. Lard is cheap in the store. And I will not name a hog. Made it too much like putting down a pet. I've killed alot of creatures over the years... I put down my own dog once, but shooting this damn pig was even tougher. Oil/lard 20lbs, bacon @10lbs, Hams 12lbs, Ribs 10lbs, shoulders 8lbs, Assorted odd cuts (spine/hips) 10lbs, 2lb of liver. Total of about 50lbs of meat with bones, 20lbs of oil. That seems like a pretty respectable yield. It sounds like she probably maxed her weight out a while ago and was putting on nothing but fat for some time. It's interesting how the genetics differ between wild and domestic hogs. I don't envy you having to shoot her. That kinda stuff will stick with you for a while. 
|
|
Quoted:
Quoted:
Oil/lard 20lbs, bacon @10lbs, Hams 12lbs, Ribs 10lbs, shoulders 8lbs, Assorted odd cuts (spine/hips) 10lbs, 2lb of liver. Total of about 50lbs of meat with bones, 20lbs of oil. That seems like a pretty respectable yield. It sounds like she probably maxed her weight out a while ago and was putting on nothing but fat for some time. It's interesting how the genetics differ between wild and domestic hogs. I don't envy you having to shoot her. That kinda stuff will stick with you for a while.
Yeah, it sucked. On the yield, it seemed to me that I spent 10-15.00 per month on corn. For about 10 months. No medication, other than Ivermectin 1-2 times. She had no external parasites. All the fencing, hoses, water pans I already had on hand. So, roughly 100-150.00 in costs. I figure the ribs, hams, shoulders to be purchasable at 2.00 a lb. 100.00 in value. The oil/lard is valuable to me. I suppose it would be 10-20.00 to purchase 2-3 gallons of fresh lard. 5.00 per gallon? I dunno for sure. 4lbs of cracklings...? 20.00? I think it was a break-even operation overall. before: 
After: 
TRG |