# Potbelly Pig for meat *GRAPHIC PICS*



## misfitmorgan (Apr 12, 2016)

We are butchering a pot belly pig and planning on using the meat, anyone had potbelly pig meat? Is it similar to regular commercial or farm raised pork? I know in Vietnam they were used and raised for meat for a very long time and still are today but its not the norm here  in the US as far as i know.

The pig will be dealt with today and plan on processing tomorrow after she hangs for a night. I know someone is thinking why would you want to eat a potbelly pig? Its less of a want and more of a want to not waste. This particular pig was given to a friend of ours...for free. OK no problem he has a male potbelly pig he likes just fine has had him for 3yrs. He ended up moving to a new farm so we temporarily had his animals at our farm, he has taken back all of his animals except the pig. We work on a 3 strike rule. You get 3 strikes then your done and on the dinner plate.

Strike one...she bit off and ate our mini boars ear....we thought well that can happen he was trying to mount her and such.

Strike two she was being very aggressive with our animals and our friends animals. Our friends Sannen goat had twin kids while at our farm. The pig went thru a fence and killed and ate one of the goat kids.

Strike three she had a litter of 11 piglets two weeks ago, she killed all but 2 of them which we took.

At this point out friend asked us to find her a new home.

Strike four last night i was in the barn checking on our sheep and lambs because we need to put in some ear tags. about 15 minutes later i looked over at our dear sweet adult sheep named honey and her ear was half gone and dripping blood. The pig bite off the sheeps ear and ate it.

All of those incidents combined with the fact she has started charging us for no apparent reason means we can not re-home her. Someone taught this pig to eat meat or that meat was walking around or encouraged it or something. Basically i am not going to give a pig to someone else who is going to eat/attack their livestock, dogs, kids, them.

So yes freezer camp for her. We dont like to waste stuff so cant see shooting and burying the 140lb pig. So anyone have any experience with this?


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## samssimonsays (Apr 12, 2016)

I heard that they were raised for smaller farming areas and are virtually the same but I have never had it so no personal experience. I am so sorry she has done so much damage.


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## Latestarter (Apr 12, 2016)

Sorry to hear about all the injuries she's caused. I'm surprised that you waited this many strikes. Also a bit surprised that your "friend" left this problem animal with you... From what I understand, and with no experience, they produce more lard than other breeds, but otherwise are just a pig... though smaller in stature. Hope you'll let us know how it goes and what the meat outcome is. I believe @Ferguson K raises PB pigs... I don't know if she's eating them or not... she has other breeds as well.


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## frustratedearthmother (Apr 12, 2016)

Don't blame you a bit for doing the deed with that one!  Please let us know how she butchers out...I'd be interested in seeing carcass pictures if you feel like sharing that.  Good luck with the processing.


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## misfitmorgan (Apr 12, 2016)

Latestarter said:


> Sorry to hear about all the injuries she's caused. I'm surprised that you waited this many strikes. Also a bit surprised that your "friend" left this problem animal with you... From what I understand, and with no experience, they produce more lard than other breeds, but otherwise are just a pig... though smaller in stature. Hope you'll let us know how it goes and what the meat outcome is. I believe @Ferguson K raises PB pigs... I don't know if she's eating them or not... she has other breeds as well.



Oh all of this happened in the past 4-5 weeks!! His other animals were at our place about 5 weeks total and it has been about a week since he took those over to his new place. His moving was a sudden and unplanned event thru some other circumstances that he could not help, he had exactly 45 days to find a new house and move everything he owned including livestock and all their pens and his 5 kids and wife. So he was building pens as fast as he could at the new place to move the animals and just didnt have hers done yet but we needed our barn space back because he has his own buck and ram and we had to split our barn in half to keep our buck and sheep away from his males.

The ear bite to the boar was about 5 weeks ago, the kid killing/eatting was 3 weeks ago, the killing of her piglets was two weeks ago, the sheep ear bite was last night. Honestly from what i have been told the boar bite is not out of norms for pigs, the goat kid was his and the piglets were an unknown event(no idea she was prego). So it was his pig and his animals, we just let it slide though we werent happy about it..that's when he said re-home her if we could and he would look too. Then the sheep ear bite and i said NO WAY, she is getting a bullet! We called him up and told him we put her in our pig pen by herself and put our pigs in our barn and he said " shoot her" before we could even tell him what had happened. So he knew she did something else and had, had enough too. He is coming to help process her tomorrow.



frustratedearthmother said:


> Don't blame you a bit for doing the deed with that one!  Please let us know how she butchers out...I'd be interested in seeing carcass pictures if you feel like sharing that.  Good luck with the processing.



Atm i am told she has been dealt with and is hanging on a gambrel in the machine shed. i am more then happy to get pictures for you guys...i even have a new camera i got like a month ago that will work nicely.


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## secuono (Apr 12, 2016)

I've bred and raised some for dinner. But most here are mixed with miniatures, so they grow slooooooow and never get anywhere.
First was an adult boar, lived with another boar and a sow, no issues. Skinning him was rediculouse though. Rest were mixed ages, all small and all normal tasting, too.

Millions of people still breed and eat them, many of them in the USA, PBs and other "homestead" hog breeds, like Kune or AGH. A pig is a pig, is a pig! They all can make mini porkchops, bacon, sausage and whatnot.


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## misfitmorgan (Apr 12, 2016)

secuono said:


> I've bred and raised some for dinner. But most here are mixed with miniatures, so they grow slooooooow and never get anywhere.
> First was an adult boar, lived with another boar and a sow, no issues. Skinning him was rediculouse though. Rest were mixed ages, all small and all normal tasting, too.
> 
> Millions of people still breed and eat them, many of them in the USA, PBs and other "homestead" hog breeds, like Kune or AGH. A pig is a pig, is a pig! They all can make mini porkchops, bacon, sausage and whatnot.


Thanks for the info, this one was already grow and over weight a lot. She is full pot belly pig as far as we know and so fat her belly would skim the ground if she wasnt on a flat surface.


On the picture front *sigh* DH started without me. I'm stuck at work and he texted me she was hung....then just now he texted a picture of lard in a bucket. i was like no i thought you were just hanging today, i need pictures!!!

So she is skinned and lard trimmed for the most part now. He said they are definately a lard pig but seem similar to any other pig after you trim off lard...which he wants to render and use for the poultry/cooking anyhow.


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## Pastor Dave (Apr 12, 2016)

You might consider smoking her. It seems to put good flavor into other tough meat or other meat that might not otherwise taste as good.


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## misfitmorgan (Apr 12, 2016)

We thought about it but we just moved onto the farm less then a year ago so we havnt built a smoker yet and there are way to many things to do to get one built in the next day or two.


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## Latestarter (Apr 12, 2016)

The smoker will come in time, like most things. Just one more thing to look forward to


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## Ferguson K (Apr 12, 2016)

Potbelly is a little greasier, but, it still tastes like pork.


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## Baymule (Apr 12, 2016)

Wow, this was a problem pig! You were right to shoot and butcher her. Post some pics of pork on a plate!


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## Pastor Dave (Apr 12, 2016)

I am not trying to sound like a smart-alec, but what about a barbecue pit? We lived in TN when I was a kid for a couple years and went to a couple pork barbecues where the hog was placed in a pit dug to smoke it in. It had a small trench dug for a little venting I think. The coals were good and hot and then wet corn shucks or something were put down so the meat didn't burn. It kept it a little moist and gave plenty of smoke. Some other layer was placed on top of the meat to keep all the heat in, but I do not remember what it was. Surely there is still someone around that does these or remembers how to do it. It may be a Southern thing, but I am thinking Western or South West.


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## misfitmorgan (Apr 13, 2016)

Latestarter said:


> The smoker will come in time, like most things. Just one more thing to look forward to



I'm sure we had one at the old farm DH built but we couldnt move it to the new farm.


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## misfitmorgan (Apr 13, 2016)

Ferguson K said:


> Potbelly is a little greasier, but, it still tastes like pork.



Thank you for the info



Pastor Dave said:


> I am not trying to sound like a smart-alec, but what about a barbecue pit? We lived in TN when I was a kid for a couple years and went to a couple pork barbecues where the hog was placed in a pit dug to smoke it in. It had a small trench dug for a little venting I think. The coals were good and hot and then wet corn shucks or something were put down so the meat didn't burn. It kept it a little moist and gave plenty of smoke. Some other layer was placed on top of the meat to keep all the heat in, but I do not remember what it was. Surely there is still someone around that does these or remembers how to do it. It may be a Southern thing, but I am thinking Western or South West.



A pit would be a good idea if we want to cook her all at once but we dont we think atm she is mostly going to be sausage and we started rendering lard to make flake lard last night. DH skinned her and cut all the lard off the skin to render. We will be trimming more lard off the carcass but i asked him to wait so i can get pics but when we got home it was already dark so i will get some today of the carcass and processing and how the cuts would look before we chop it into sausage. If she was a younger pig we might plan on making typical cuts but she is over a year old we know so we will have to see how the meat seems.

The other problem with a pit is.....she is already hanging and i live in northern michigan so the ground is still frozen so no digging. We are wanting to quickly get her processed and in the freezer cause the next 4 days are forecasted at 51,57, 64, & 69 today is 45 which might be pushing it a bit but we had a good freeze last night and she is in a cold building so she should stay fresh until we get off work and can get to it.


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## Pastor Dave (Apr 13, 2016)

Those sound like our temp range and forecast 

I have made sausage and can make pretty good summer sausage too. With the spices used, you should not have to worry about the original flavor of the pork too much. Even so, I am sure processing the pork into cuts will taste pretty good too. Let us know how it all works out.


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## Bunnylady (Apr 13, 2016)

Pastor Dave said:


> I am not trying to sound like a smart-alec, but what about a barbecue pit? It may be a Southern thing, but I am thinking Western or South West.



You could go a lot further south and west - like Polynesia; except there they use banana leaves. Or northeast, where a similar cooking technique may be used for seafood (frequently employing seaweed). But absolutely, one doesn't have to be limited to the size of whatever cooking devices they have.

Sounds like this was the only real solution for this problem pig - after the bitterness of the last few weeks, I hope she tastes sweet!


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## misfitmorgan (Apr 13, 2016)

Bunnylady said:


> Sounds like this was the only real solution for this problem pig - after the bitterness of the last few weeks, I hope she tastes sweet!



Thank you, we are hoping so too!! I am still so angry about my poor sheep missing her ear and she is only a year and a half old and pure suffolk.


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## misfitmorgan (Apr 14, 2016)

Alright i will post pics up tonight but she is all processed and in the fridge chilling so we can do the second grind for sausage. How much did we get from her?

Fat/Lard before rendering - two 3 gallon buckets
Rendered Lard - unsure so far one 3 gallon pail left, two quart jars rendered and a 3 gallon pot rendered. We did 3 types of fat/lard for 3 batchs.
Type 1- cooking lard
Type 2 - baking lard
Type 3  - pristine flake lard - for lard biscuits mostly

Meat - roughly 50lbs
Tender loins and hanging loins were good we kept them whole. All other meat was ground.

I really have to say that no a potbelly pig is not like a regular meat pig. At least this one was not but she was not raised intended for butcher and was over weight by a fair amount.

Differences we noticed:
A typical feeder pig has the thick layer of fat under the skin and likely kidney fat then its mostly muscle with some fat around the muscles in places. A pot belly is put together differently, this pig had fat/muscle/fat/muscle etc...it was rather strange. Picture bacon but all over except the back legs and loins...and oddly the belly was just layers of muscle for the most part.
The muscle also seemed to be softer then typical feeder muscle. The ground pork appears perfectly edible though and the loins are very tender.

This pig weighted well over 100lbs live...so you can see what you could expect to get from a typical potbelly pig not raised for meat.


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## frustratedearthmother (Apr 14, 2016)

Thanks for the breakdown.


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## misfitmorgan (Apr 14, 2016)

frustratedearthmother said:


> Thanks for the breakdown.


Your welcome.....pics later tonight.


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## misfitmorgan (Apr 16, 2016)

Pics got delayed been busy. In the pics you can see how much fat she had from the places it was cut away already.


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## TAH (Apr 16, 2016)

She looks so good


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## Big A Ranch (May 18, 2016)

misfitmorgan said:


> We are butchering a pot belly pig and planning on using the meat, anyone had potbelly pig meat? Is it similar to regular commercial or farm raised pork? I know in Vietnam they were used and raised for meat for a very long time and still are today but its not the norm here  in the US as far as i know.
> 
> The pig will be dealt with today and plan on processing tomorrow after she hangs for a night. I know someone is thinking why would you want to eat a potbelly pig? Its less of a want and more of a want to not waste. This particular pig was given to a friend of ours...for free. OK no problem he has a male potbelly pig he likes just fine has had him for 3yrs. He ended up moving to a new farm so we temporarily had his animals at our farm, he has taken back all of his animals except the pig. We work on a 3 strike rule. You get 3 strikes then your done and on the dinner plate.
> 
> ...



Wow! eat the pig eat the pig! what a bad piggy! I commend you for the waste not want not attitude! Tell me how she tastes. To many people give rotten animals passes! I just hope the crazy is not passed down to the babies. 
P


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## misfitmorgan (May 19, 2016)

TAH said:


> She looks so good


She was tasty



Big A Ranch said:


> Wow! eat the pig eat the pig! what a bad piggy! I commend you for the waste not want not attitude! Tell me how she tastes. To many people give rotten animals passes! I just hope the crazy is not passed down to the babies.
> P


She tasted fine though tough because of her age. We kept the tenerloin and had those and even they were not tender lol. She made great breakfast sausage though and she is all gone now except the lard for us and the suet we saved for the chickens...they love her too. The piglets went to live at our friend's house he owned the mom pig and he is raising them for meat. They started getting mean around a month old so best to just get rid of that line all together. All animals on the farm get 3 strikes before they go be it rabbits, chickens, pigs, goats etc. we are breeding for nice animals who are friendly but not to friendly, that have good mothering abilities.


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## Big A Ranch (May 24, 2016)

misfitmorgan said:


> She was tasty
> 
> 
> She tasted fine though tough because of her age. We kept the tenerloin and had those and even they were not tender lol. She made great breakfast sausage though and she is all gone now except the lard for us and the suet we saved for the chickens...they love her too. The piglets went to live at our friend's house he owned the mom pig and he is raising them for meat. They started getting mean around a month old so best to just get rid of that line all together. All animals on the farm get 3 strikes before they go be it rabbits, chickens, pigs, goats etc. we are breeding for nice animals who are friendly but not to friendly, that have good mothering abilities.



Glad she is gone and the pesky babies as well. How old is old for butchering a pig? 
P


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## misfitmorgan (May 25, 2016)

Big A Ranch said:


> Glad she is gone and the pesky babies as well. How old is old for butchering a pig?
> P



Generally most large breed pigs are butchered at 250-300lbs when they come from a non-factory farm. They generally reach that in roughly 6-7 months and are butchered....that is why pork is tender, well that and confinement farms. Generally a pig over a year old is considered past prime for butcher as is one over 300lbs. Commercially any pig being taken to sale/slaughter over 250lbs is dinged on price. The problem is the layer of back fat..producers only want so much fat on the back and when the pigs top over 250lbs on the diets they keep them on it quickly turns into a more fatty pig then they want or the consumer wants. Which honestly is true.. 9 out of 10 people who buy meat at the store would not want to buys say loin pork chops with an inch of fat down one side. That all being said, the slaughter houses use a special machine to remove the skin and a portion of the fat along with it(think pork rinds) so consumers never see the "natural" amount of fat on our chops. In theory they could just cut off more fat with the skin but then they would have to much fat left on the skin to be sold to companies that use it.


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## Alicia (Sep 17, 2016)

Way to go on the not wasting! She was a very fat naughty piggy!! Thanks for sharing pics and info.
Alicia


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## misfitmorgan (Sep 19, 2016)

No Problem


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## Mini Horses (Sep 19, 2016)

Good job.  I didn't make sausage with my AGH butchered.  The had plenty of fat but were 13 months old.  Meat has been tender but they were pastured & fed little grain, lots of outdated veg scraps, etc.   Plan to do at 9mos next time.

Did render leaf lard.    No time for the skins, disposed of that mostly.  Will render some next time, with better planning.  First butcher for me in years, quite a job for cutting, etc.  Had 2 & got a little tired of it.      Next only 1 at a time!


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## misfitmorgan (Sep 19, 2016)

Our yes it took forever just to cut that potbelly pig down..mostly due to the amount of fat and how it was on the carcass.

We have 3 meat pigs that will be getting done before winter. It hasnt cooled enough here yet because we do home butcher and have to hang outside. One of those two pigs will be taken to the butcher to dress because we are using it for a whole hog roast Oct 1st and the butcher can hang it for a few days for us in the walk-in.

Our new boar and one of the new gilts are going as well as our barrow. The barrow and gilt will be home butcher. The boar will be for the roast. 

Normally we only butcher barrows but the boar has been with 3 gilts for 4 months and none have been bred so he obviously is not doing his job, which sucks cause i really like him. He has a great attitude for a boar. The gilt is just not performing as we would like, she is quite a lot smaller then the other gilts and her personality is rather snarky and flightly which we also dont like much.


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## Baymule (Sep 19, 2016)

Haha, hear that piggies? If'n you ain't making bacon, off to the butcher with you and you can be the guest of honor at a whole hog roast!!


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## misfitmorgan (Sep 20, 2016)

Baymule said:


> Haha, hear that piggies? If'n you ain't making bacon, off to the butcher with you and you can be the guest of honor at a whole hog roast!!





Exactly.
We dropped off the Boar and gilt last night at the butcher and will pick them up on the 30th. i'm a little sad, i liked our boar


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## Baymule (Nov 2, 2017)

I have a question about that boar. How old was he? You said he'd been with gilts for several months and none were pregnant. I'm guessing maybe a year old? And did he have boar taint and was the meat tough? 

We're taking our 1 year old boar to slaughter and hopefully he doesn't have taint.


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## misfitmorgan (Nov 2, 2017)

Near as i can recall he was almost exactly a year old. He had been with gilts and bred Sarah successfully she had 6 piglets 2 stillborn. 

I didnt notice the meat being anymore tough then any of our other younger pigs. There was more fat of course. 

Boar taint is mostly a myth, does it exist? Yes but it was way more common in the old style pigs who stored a lot of the taint in their fat and it was not limited to boars only, gilts and sows could have it too. 

If you have a pig and your butchering fairly young like before 18months old your odds of having a boar with taint are less then 30%. You also have to remember that it is mostly a genetic problem, so if the parents have no taint the offsping can't get the genetic taint. They are two types of taint one is genetic and one is environmental. Basically if your keeping your pig in decent housing with room enough to have a poop spot and only poop there and your feeding them enough not to want to root thru their poop the environmental taint isnt an option.

It comes down to if you have adequate food, good animal husbandry, and a pink pig(landrace, white, etc) your actual odds of having taint show up are 6% or less. Also only 30ish% of the population can detect boar taint.

We have eaten a lot of older pigs and intact boars and have yet to have one with boar taint since we got back into pigs. DH has had pigs with boar taint but that was in iowa and they were confinement raised and rejected for one reason or another and that was also 10+yrs ago.


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## Baymule (Nov 2, 2017)

Thanks for your answer. I've been wondering if I would have a big pile of dog food or some good pork. They are on an acre, they eat grass and they get a flake or two of hay every day. I feed them corn soaked in goat's milk whey, that is soured. We'll know soon, they go to slaughter in 4 days.


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## misfitmorgan (Nov 3, 2017)

Hopefully good pork!

It's possible to have taint but as i said odds are in your favor.


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## frustratedearthmother (Nov 3, 2017)

I had boar bacon this morning.....I can't imagine it being any better!


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## greybeard (Nov 3, 2017)

misfitmorgan said:


> Near as i can recall he was almost exactly a year old. He had been with gilts and bred Sarah successfully she had 6 piglets 2 stillborn.
> 
> I didnt notice the meat being anymore tough then any of our other younger pigs. There was more fat of course.
> 
> ...


Much like butchering a young bull instead of making it a steer. Most times, if he hasn't done much 'bullin' around,(chasing females and pushing other yearlings around & producing testosterone and  adrenaline) I find the beef just as good and usually a little 'sweeter' than that from a steer. Might not be marbled as well but certainly good beef.

I'm not really a swine guy, and tho I have been around nearly 7 decades, I can't remember or say about the taste but have heard lots of old timers say today's pork is missing the real pork taste that    they used to get, and I gathered from their comments that some of what they were missing was the 'taint' taste....?

There's little doubt that especially in commercially prepared sausage, that old boar meat is included in the mix, just as old broke mouth cull cow and bull meat is included in ground beef. Seems if taint were that big of an issue, you'd taste it in Jimmy Deans, but maybe the spices overpower it..

An aside..
Marbling in pork. I remember when on a meat judging team (waaay back when), there was very little if any talk about marbling in pork.  Maybe it's only because of the internet and availability to more sources, but it nowadays seems there is more emphasis put on the pork marbling aspect--is this the case?


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## Pastor Dave (Nov 3, 2017)

I remember stories of settlers passed down through their children to my Grandpa that hogs were ear notched or maybe tagged and neighbors' swine ran loose together until a roundup time in Fall for butchering. Everybody found their own and separated them, then neighbors helped each other butcher so they could salt pack and or smoke the meat.

The hogs scavanged for roots and nuts, maybe ate small critters as omnivores, but ate and lived wild and most likely maintained that flavor much like a deer or elk over grain fed beef of today. 

This was all changed at least in IN by my Grandpa's day when you kept your own stock in a pen. The flavor probably became more mild than when scavanging for food, and as folks grew accustomed to milder tasting pork, it became standard by tbe time my Dad raised hogs in the 60s and 70s. Folks nowadays want everything domestic and mild. 

Age and testerone are obviously going to affect the flavor of the meat. I have only been dealing with meats and processing some 30 years, but prefer the domestic taste over wild. Everyone asks how to take out some of the wild flavor. No one asks how to put it back in or make it taste more strong. Haha


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## Baymule (Nov 3, 2017)

Todays pork is factory farmed, the meat is pale and bland. Tender, but bland. The 2 times that we have raised pigs, the meat is darker than store bought, a little tougher, but has better flavor. 

@greybeard as far as marbling in pork, I really haven't put in much time in studying that. Most of their fat is the outside layer under their skin, which I am sure you already know. Berkshires supposedly have marbling, and they are priced accordingly.


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## misfitmorgan (Nov 3, 2017)

I believe the marbling game in came along in pork when berks had a surge in popularity and commercial production. Berks are known for good marbling. Other newer/fewer breeds are also touted for their marbling like the mangalista. It does seem to be a rather new phenomenon. 

We used to have old style pigs some where lard pigs and some were meat pigs and some were dual but by todays commercial standards almost all of them would have failed to make the cut. To slow to grow, bad feed to meat conversion, to much lard left on the carcass, etc. So the goal was to cut the lard, to make lean pigs. In making lean pigs the meat was less marbled but no one cared because it was a lean pig which ment more healthy(marketing). Now after decades of being promoted to flavorless food people are going the other way.

We are a country that has been trained and guided to "like" what is the easier and cheapest to raise/manufacture, what is identical and to be appalled by nature and the natural state of foods. Pork is/was one of the most heavily promoted industries and will continue to be for as long as people are satisfied with commercial pork. You can find old (pre-1960) adverts and videos all over the internet touting the benefits of the "new" lean pork available. How it was so nice for house wives to have a product they could count on to always be the same, and a bunch of other junk we now think of as this is how meat is...

When it came down to choosing whether the government should promote chicken or rabbit as a "top" meat the deciding factor was that house wives found it easier to clean and prepare chicken then rabbit. Otherwise the top meats would be beef, pork and rabbit.

As far as people asking how to get a stronger flavor or not, we actually discuss that with many people, that is why people are interested in buying our pork....the stronger flavor. This is the same reason people are interested in buying slightly slower growing farm raised chicken, more flavor. It is very similar to a store bought everyday tomato and a garden tomato, most people want the garden version because.....stronger flavor.

The mild flavor of modern commercial pork is due to the bland diet (mostly corn and soy), being butchered very young, and many lean modern breeds actually have a anemic problem....that is why pork is the other white meat. 

The pork industry saw the problem and they saw it was "off-putting" to house wives because the meat was not the right. So the industry lowered the price of pork so much housewives could not afford not to buy it and they started the largest ad campaigns in the National Pork Boards history which was "Pork...the other white meat". This worked because chicken was the cheapest meat at the time and it was white and it what people grew to want because they had it a lot. The average consumer associated white meat with healthy meat, even though pork is not a white meat it is actually a red meat in nutritional terms. This ad campaign helped pork sales raise by 20% nationwide.


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## Pastor Dave (Nov 3, 2017)

A pale tomatoe from Chile in winter has no taste.
Give me a fresh, home-raised tomatoe any day!
Same with meat, milk, etc, etc.


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## greybeard (Nov 3, 2017)

Pastor Dave said:


> I remember stories of settlers passed down through their children to my Grandpa that hogs were ear notched or maybe tagged and neighbors' swine ran loose together until a roundup time in Fall for butchering. Everybody found their own and separated them, then neighbors helped each other butcher so they could salt pack and or smoke the meat.
> 
> The hogs scavanged for roots and nuts, maybe ate small critters as omnivores, but ate and lived wild and most likely maintained that flavor much like a deer or elk over grain fed beef of today.



I've seen this in my own lifetime, ending sometime in the mid1970s while I was overseas..
Both swine and cattle ran wild here in this county, as it was still an open range county when I was young.
You fenced property to keep people's livestock OUT..not your own in, and even today, the only fence law the state has is in regards to how good your fence needs to be to keep stock OUT..  

Yep, usually in late spring and sometimes the fall, long lines of stock trailers along the roads, and the baying of dogs  meant roundup was underway. They built temporary holding pens all over the forest and drove or enticed cattle and hogs in to them.Ear notching, collecting calves and pigs to carry to sale and branding all took place almost on the side of the roads.
There were also pits dug and temp fences strung to drive the stock into the pits, which were filled with water and insecticide to treat the hogs and cattle for parasites (mostly ticks).  
There was a cross county fence and cattle guards on all the county roads where the county line ended and entrance to town. you can still see cattle guards on the drive way of some houses between here and town, left over  from that era even tho the livestock are long gone and none of those places are farms anymore


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## greybeard (Nov 3, 2017)

misfitmorgan said:


> The pork industry saw the problem and they saw it was "off-putting" to house wives because the meat was not the right. So the industry lowered the price of pork so much housewives could not afford not to buy it and they started the largest ad campaigns in the National Pork Boards history which was "Pork...the other white meat". This worked because chicken was the cheapest meat at the time and it was white and it what people grew to want because they had it a lot. The average consumer associated white meat with healthy meat, even though pork is not a white meat it is actually a red meat in nutritional terms. This ad campaign helped pork sales raise by 20% nationwide.


Not to mention that beef got priced out of many consumers' budget. 
I did notice a new pork campaign a few years ago, that didn't really inspire me to go right out and order up  a pork chop.


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## Pastor Dave (Nov 3, 2017)

That would have been something to experience GB. Indiana was too settled by then. We have the cattle guards at driveways, but I believe it was to help keep cattle in if they should get loose. I can see it working well to keep them out of one's property though.

My Grandparents were all born in 1916 with exception of Mom's father that had 5 years on Grandma. My Dad's parents were born on Indiana's centennial year. We had killed off most of the bears, and wolves, and pushed Natives to the West. We had cleared timber and fenced in farms and were "civilized" by then. Haha

It's still amazing the progression Grandpa saw in automation, electricity, plumbing, and so many other technologies we take for granted.


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## Baymule (Nov 3, 2017)

@greybeard Trinity county was still open range up to 1981 or 1982. What amazed me was that people's horses still came home every night for feed.


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## rodeogirl (Nov 9, 2017)

There are a lot of places in Wyoming that are still open range. I also believe that wyoming is a fence out state for cattle mules and horses.


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## misfitmorgan (Nov 10, 2017)

Michigan is still open range in many places but you must have a permit to do so, we are still a fence out state but some judges are over turning that where large amounts of damage are done.


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