Calling All Mid-Western Farm Boys

[Hunterman]

Lady Nutcracker and I are thinking about raising a couple of pigs for the freezer...My question for y'all is,,,,What is the best breed for meat, and how long do you let them live before butchering??

Hunterman(Tony)

 

[Bambistew]

Do yourself a favor... find a kid in 4H and have him do the rasing for ya... when its all said and done you'll be way ahead time and money... Thats about all know about pig farm'n.

 

[Nemont]

There is no "best" breed. Most all taste the same and are about equal in yield. We used to raise pigs and I hated it. Stinking things always were a pain in the ass. We now buy them from a local farmer who raise "organic" hogs and then have them custom butchered. Less money, time and work invested in them. When we did raise pigs we fed them until then weighed in between 230 and 260 lbs but I recently bought one that has been the best tasting pork and it only weighed 210 lbs.

Nemont

 

[MarvB]

Tony...good advice from both above! When I was a kid we always had a couple of hogs in the pen...stanky bastages they are. Course it was kinda cool (again as a kid) when the chickens would get too close to the pigs (they were in peckin' the chit) and would end up as an appetizer

Go the 4H route or to the County Fair...anything you pay over "fair market price" is deductable as a donation and you'llmake some kids day!

 

[MarlandS]

I totally agree with the "buy them elsewhere " sentiments above. That is unless you are prepared to make a hog proof pen, find someone to grind feed because complete feeds in bags are too expensive, deal with loading them when the time comes, deal with the holes in the pen, deal with the holes in the yard when they get out, vet bills, etc add to that, on a small scale you'll probably have more in them than they're worth.

 

[ELKCHSR]

Hey Tony....
We had some of the best pigs I have ever raised a few years ago.
The diet consisted of a high protein mix and we were able to give them five gallons of mild a day from a dairy down the road that wasn't yet quite certified, then when they were bigger, we upped the milk to ten gallons a day, also plenty of fresh fruits and vegies from the local grocery stores, that was for three little piggies.
I am guessing we butchered them at around 200 pounds each.
The bacon was around 75% meat, and the none of the chops had any of the big streaks of fat thru the meat that one usually finds from other sources of pigs.
I didn't have any hams made because my wife and I don't normally eat much ham.

 

[snite66]

I am afraid I must agree with the others on letting someone else raise them. I raised hogs for several years and finaly got out of it. We had a 1500 head fattening floor and a ferring house to hold 24 sows, and it was still hard to come out ahead. You can wait till the market is down and buy the hog right then have a processor do the cut meat for around .25 a pound and the cured meat for about .35 a pound and come out a lot better than raising them yourself.

 

[BigHornRam]

One of my good Wisconsin buddies raise hogs commercially. You don't want to see a production pork opperation. Most all feeder pigs are crossbred (2 to 3 differnt breeds). I bought 1/2 a hog from a small organic farmer in Kalispell about a year ago. Cut, wrapped, hams and bacon smoked, sausage made from the scrapes. Best pork I ever ate. I don't know how he turned a dollar this way as the price was very reasonable. I would never raise the smelly things if you can buy it the way I did.

 

[Hunterman]

Ok,, I'm sold....No pig pins on this farm....We picked up our beef from the butcher the other day and saw that a half a pig was selling for just .99 per pound...I can't raise them for that...I think that I'll just take some of our tax return and buy a whole hog from the butcher hump

Thanks for the info guys..

Hunterman(Tony)