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Hog advice

Started by mike_belben, March 13, 2018, 11:22:40 AM

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newoodguy78

When I make sausage I try to stick to around 20% fat or a little under,usually add two pounds of fat to ten pounds of lean meat. That ratio seems to go over well with people I give it to 

coxy

i always went 2 lbs less meat on the leggs seasoning and seemed to be stronger there breakfast seasoning is good at the 50lb mark 

Corley5

I've got a deal with a friend, he raises the pork and beef and I supply him with firewood 8) 8) 8)  I've got to pick up the latest pig from the processor Friday.  We had the hams, bacon and loins smoked and the rest turned into brats and polish sausage.  $293.00 is the total to haul, kill, process, smoke, and freeze this time.  Good deal for us 8) 8) 8) 
Burnt Gunpowder is the Smell Of Freedom

mike_belben

My neighbor took my trailer over to go get a few today.  Theyd busted the pen a while back and finished eating up the yard, so they started going down the road and the law showed up.  He was gonna have to start shooting them.  

Im prepared to hear that the slaughter bill is gonna be pretty painful and meat disappointing but we shall see.  Other neighbor says if you can shoot em while theyre calm over a bucket of feed and immediately gut the nuts off while still kicking, the meats fine.  It was just too much of a chore for me on a chance of unedible meat, i cant afford the time or materials to waste.  
Praise The Lord

starmac

Dem nuts be some of the best eatin you will ever get.
Old LT40HD, old log truck, old MM forklift, and several huskies.

olcowhand

I'm with the majority here, Mike. Pass, or maybe take the two to a sale and use the money toward a fed hog (210- ~235 lbs). I've processed 350- 400 lbs Sows (female that has had a litter), taking best cuts and the rest into whole hog sausage. That worked alright, but I would never consider processing a boar that mature.
Best fed hogs for processing are "barrows" (castrated male) or "gilts" (un-bred females).
Olcowhand's Workshop, LLC

They say the mind is the first to go; I'm glad it's something I don't use!

Ezekiel 36:26-27

PA_Walnut

OK, so I'm a visual kinda dude... Sunday had bacons on the smoker! (cooking chicken under it to receive the holy-grail drippings)  :o

Be sure to leave skin on if you want to make great bacon....easy to cure and smoke with a few critical steps in mind. Can send you some tips!

I own my own small piece of the world on an 8 acre plot on the side of a mountain with walnut, hickory, ash and spruce.
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Bay Beagle

the signs of getting older, or aging gracefully ........... in our Youth, we talked about women, wild adventures and wild nights ..... now were swapping recipes ~

for every 20 lbs of pork mixture - I use one package of LEGGS #10, 40 oz. water, 7 beef bouillon cubes & 8 tsp crushed red pepper - mix it all into the water, and let sit for a hour
coarse grind meat ...... mix the water mixture into the meat until it stiffins ..... regrind the meat with a smaller plate (3/16) - STUFF CASINGS OR 1 lb. MEAT PACKAGE - let sit 12+ hours, shrink wrap casings in food saver packages - then freeze

for hot Italian sausage - I use LEGGS #103 - and process the same way as above

always trying new ways

TKehl

Boars can go either way.  Some have strong odor, others don't. If he smells "musky" (not just pig smell), so will the meat.  (Last boar I had was only musky when kept separate.  Put him in with the ladies and he smelled a lot better.  ;D)

I'm good with young boars up to say 250 Lbs.  Bigger is more of a gamble.  Probably giving away as it's not worth it to take to auction.  Around here a person might get $30 for a big old boar on a good day.  Most of them go to Mexico as cheap protein along with the old Mutton from what I'm told.

Hogs I take to butcher are about $0.50/lb vac packed plus grinding or anything special like brats.  

For hanging, our butcher won't hang more than 7 days on pork and prefers less.  Doesn't help it as much as deer or beef.  

If you do butcher yourself, get the meat almost frozen before you grind and it will go a lot better.  Also, keeping any animal calm at butcher gives better meat IMHO.  ;)
In the long run, you make your own luck – good, bad, or indifferent. Loretta Lynn

sandhills

Not to get off track too far but we used to raise hogs, nothing big but would sell about 20 (that's what the trailer would hold) a week, anyway all dirt raised but when the market fell out we quit.  For some reason and I don't know why, but we kept the last boar, and kept it, and kept it, when dad finally sold it it (Tom) weighed 920+ 
#.  He was pretty gentle but would eat 5 gallons of corn a day  :o.  You could've made 2 meals out of the oysters and still had left overs  :D.  He's the reason why I can't stand sausage pizza anymore  ;D.
P.S. I still have recurring nightmares about raising pigs again.

TKehl

Sandhill, I hear you.  Dad used to have 100 sows on dirt.  We got back in a few years ago with 7 sows growing for custom butcher.  But, we are getting out for now as there are too many irons in the fire and pigs were pretty low on the profit side and high on time requirement (fences).

Fattening out my last sow now.  Kept her as a bred gilt and already sold the piglets.  Bittersweet.  Will miss having pigs, but it frees up some time and besides they are HARD on the ground.
In the long run, you make your own luck – good, bad, or indifferent. Loretta Lynn

starmac

It has been many years since I have kept up with the price of hogs, but I can't imagine boars that size selling for 30 bucks.
For several years we kept around 300 head and raise all our own sows, so, we bought, sold and traded boars on a regular basis. I do not remember what we got or laid back then, but it was much more than that, heck back then we got as much as 25 bucks and never under 20 for weaners at 6 weeks old.
Old LT40HD, old log truck, old MM forklift, and several huskies.

coxy

they are getting 100-150$ for piglets around here and 200-300$ for butcher size go figure its not worth raising your own i only get from 2 people i know what they feed  there is a few people that feed  there pigs road kill steve_smileythat must be the nastiest meat ever think i would rather have them boars that mike was talking about ;D 

olcowhand

Mike,
As you can see by the response you've gotten on this thread, FF Members have as much (if not more) experience opening up different kinds of Hogs as they (we?) have opening up different kinds of wood. I'm humbled by both the wealth of knowledge and the willingness to share it, but all was given freely in your best interest.
Good luck in your future endeavors to find meat. If you lived closer, I'd find a way of getting you some cheap pork.....
PA Walnut, That is some good looking smoked meat you got going there; when's breakfast?
Olcowhand's Workshop, LLC

They say the mind is the first to go; I'm glad it's something I don't use!

Ezekiel 36:26-27

WLC

Quote from: PA_Walnut on March 15, 2018, 06:03:30 AM
OK, so I'm a visual kinda dude... Sunday had bacons on the smoker! (cooking chicken under it to receive the holy-grail drippings)  :o

Be sure to leave skin on if you want to make great bacon....easy to cure and smoke with a few critical steps in mind. Can send you some tips!




Now I gotta wipe the drool off my puter keyboard...  Man that made my mouth water.  Would love the chicken marinated in bacon drippings while it cooked too.
Woodmizer LT28
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Stihl chainsaws
Elbow grease.

TKehl

Quote from: starmac on March 15, 2018, 06:11:28 PMI can't imagine boars that size selling for 30 bucks. For several years we kept around 300 head and raise all our own sows, so, we bought, sold and traded boars on a regular basis. I do not remember what we got or laid back then, but it was much more than that, heck back then we got as much as 25 bucks and never under 20 for weaners at 6 weeks old.


I agree, good breeding boars are valuable.  Old butcher boars, however, are barely worth taking to market.  Often they bring more than $30, but more like $40-60 is common.  No one wants them.  I saw one around 600 Lbs brought $27.  (Yes he was well muscled, not skin and bones.)  The small operation that have popped up generally wants a 250-300 Lb boar as they are one boar operations and need something not too big for gilts but big enough for sows.  

The old hog markets are dead.  Killed by confinement pork.  The old buying stations that put groups of pigs together are gone.  (At least within 2 hours of me for sure.)  There are are only two outlets for a little guy like me.  1.  Custom butchers (taking to auction eventually ends up at a custom butcher, so really the same deal) 2.  Contract raising for someone like Niman Ranch under their dietary and welfare requirements.  This is something I intend to look at real hard once the house is done and I have a bit more time.
In the long run, you make your own luck – good, bad, or indifferent. Loretta Lynn

mike_belben

Paul got one of em cut up today.  I think id be best to get an oversize garden and some fruit trees established and then  getting a piglet or two.. Just to be sure i can feed them affordably.  Im told feed the heck out of em and slaughter in 3 months.  Thoughts?
Praise The Lord

starmac

Mike, 5 months with good feed, is generally how long to to top one off.
Old LT40HD, old log truck, old MM forklift, and several huskies.

coxy

when we had pigs we fed the hog feed then a month before butchering we boarded up the pen so they couldn't run around and fed them 2x as much as normal but fed them corn meal   we found a barrel of grapes one time along the highway and fed it to the pigs they where so drunk they couldn't walk did the same with a barrel of apples :D     

starmac

I used to show hogs at the fairs, the biggest being Houston livestock show, I took 18th in the barrow class out of probably 500, not good enough to get in the money, but pretty good for an old country boy that didn't spend the big bucks to compete.

I did not have time to walk the hog a mile or more a day, like you have to do to be competitive, so I built a pen 6 foot wide and 60 feet long. An 8 foot shed with a raised floor and the feeder on one end and the waterer on the other end, now this was down on the coast and it rained a lot, so most of the time it would sink nearly to its belly in mud getting back and forth to water.
If you want the best meat ever, make your hog exorcise, in later years I would buy show hogs from the fairs partly to support the kids showing them, but mainly for the meat. We raised hogs all through my youth, and the meat from a regular pen raised hog, or pork bought at the store will never compare to it.
Old LT40HD, old log truck, old MM forklift, and several huskies.

WV Sawmiller

   I had a co-worker said he had a neighbor in SC who raised them in in tight pens where they could not turn around. I think he had them head to tail 6 pens deep and just fed the first one.. I think PETA shut him down.
Howard Green
WM LT35HDG25(2015) , 2011 4WD F150 Ford Lariat PU, Kawasaki 650 ATV, Stihl 440 Chainsaw, homemade logging arch (w/custom built rear log dolly), JD 750 w/4' wide Bushhog brand FEL

Dad always said "You can shear a sheep a bunch of times but you can only skin him once

mike_belben

I think my biggest fear is having to castrate a live critter.  Its just not in my DNA yet.  I shot my dog of 13 years this past winter, so i can shoot a pig, and ive helped sawzall a few, no big deal.   Tge thought of cutting his nuts out while he kicks and squeels in pain makes me feel like a horrible person already.  I dunno how to cross that bridge but i know im gonna have to. 
Praise The Lord

rjwoelk

I recall holding the piglets while dad cut, gave vit shot, pulled their tusk teeth. 
The screaming from them started the second you got a hold of them and never changed till you let them go.
Lt15 palax wood processor,3020 JD 7120 CIH 36x72 hay shed for workshop coop tractor with a duetz for power plant

TKehl

Quote from: starmac on March 17, 2018, 12:08:11 AMMike, 5 months with good feed


Agree completely.  

We planted a bunch of fruit trees with staggered ripening.  Figure from dropped fruit & nuts it should eventually cover a lot of the diet from July to early July, but will still need summer protein.  

Corn finish is nice, but I prefer acorn and hickory finish.  Helps that we have an abundance of them.  ;D

Castrating isn't bad.  Ear plugs are the most important piece of equipment.  ;)  Younger is better, but have done them up to 50-60 Lbs with 2 people.  We had a small operation the last few year with plenty of room for the pigs.  As such, I didn't clip teeth or tails and had no issues. 
In the long run, you make your own luck – good, bad, or indifferent. Loretta Lynn

POSTON WIDEHEAD

Quote from: mike_belben on March 17, 2018, 12:41:35 PM
I think my biggest fear is having to castrate a live critter.   
What about the critter?  :o :o :o
The older I get I wish my body could Re-Gen.

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