Baymule's 2020 Feeder Pigs!

[Baymule]

Oh boy, these pigs are at least 300 pounders now. Big girls!

We have our 3 granddaughters for the week. The oldest is making the social rounds, the little girls are hanging with Mamaw and Papaw. BJ had to go to Tyler this morning, I stayed home with the little girls. It was raining, the dogs wanted in, so it turned into a Wet Dog Party. The girls loved it. Cartoons and dogs, life is good. I looked out the kitchen window to see some short animals in the horse lot. Sheep? What are THEY doing in the horse lot? I looked closer through the rainy window and saw a big head low to the ground. PIGS! The pigs are out! Great. Just great.

I told the girls to stay in, put on a hoodie to keep the rain off me, grabbed the red coffee can of kitchen scraps and ran outside. I went up the pipeline calling pig, pig, pig and they meandered their way through the horse barn to the pipeline. Pig, pig, pig and they followed me. Sentry rushed the fence to protect me from the pig monsters and it scared them. I told Sentry No, and he didn’t bark, but he sure watched them!

I got them calmed down, shaking the coffee can and led them through the gate to their pen. Whew!

You don’t MAKE a couple of 300 pound pigs do much of anything they don’t want to. The staples holding the chain latch had worked out so I wrapped the chain around the post and latched it.

I got them a bucket of stinky soured corn and they were happy. For an added treat, I boiled them some eggs and gave to them. It just goes to show you, even for slaughter animals, treat them well, spoil them with treats and yummies and it just might pay off when you need it to.

 

[farmerjan]

PHEW..... that could've been interesting.... but like you said... treat them right, and they will often be glad to follow.... not realizing that it is the end to their little adventures.... How do you think we often get loose cattle in.... a big white 5 gal bucket and calling.... and USUALLY we can get even the 1500-2000 lb bulls to follow....

 

[Baymule]

All loaded up and ready to leave at 7:00 in the morning. I’m actually gonna miss the pigs. I keep a pig bucket on the kitchen counter and put all the kitchen trimmings in it for them. No scraping plates in it though, that goes to the dogs. I’ve been working on organizing and cleaning out the freezers. One is full of vegetables, the other one is for meat. I’ve got ten 1 gallon bags of frozen tomatoes in the meat freezer that I’ve got to get processed muy pronto!

 

[farmerjan]

They look real good.

 

[Baymule]

Thanks. They sure have been fed good. Free choice hog grower pellets until a month ago, plus soured corn. For the last month they have been on soured corn, it sure puts a nice finish on them. Plus they gave gotten all the garden yummies, tomatoes with bad spots, watermelons, kitchen trimmings, weeds from the garden, boiled egg treats. That's how we load them. I don't feed them for a day, then toss boiled eggs in the trailer and they load themselves. These two were so friendly that I had to go down the fence and dump the pig bucket over the fence to distract them while BJ backed the trailer up and we opened the gate.

Sure looking forward to pork chops, sausage and pork roast. We will cure and smoke the bacon ourselves. We had the grand daughters the week before school started and the littlest one hit the house wanting sausage. Her eyes got big when I told her that we were out! So we took a walk to the Pig Palace to look at future sausage, bacon and pork chops. The 5 year old said, "I know where they are going! They are going to slaughter!"

 

[OneFineAcre]

We actually just went and bought 3 hogs today. 2 were 350 lbs and the other was 320. Paid the farm $0.60 per pound. Leaving them on the trailer tonight and taking them to the slaughter house tomorrow.
We are taking one and Maurine's sister is taking the other two. She has a meat handlers license is going to sell at least one of them retail at farmer's market.

 

[Baymule]

We actually just went and bought 3 hogs today. 2 were 350 lbs and the other was 320. Paid the farm $0.60 per pound. Leaving them on the trailer tonight and taking them to the slaughter house tomorrow.
We are taking one and Maurine's sister is taking the other two. She has a meat handlers license is going to sell at least one of them retail at farmer's market.

It must be a whole lot easier to get hogs slaughtered there than it is here. Slaughter facilities are booking out a YEAR in advance. Since the Covid pandemic, suddenly everyone wants to be a farmer. I booked these two for slaughter back in February, when we got them. Darn good thing that I did! I usually book a date for lambs when they are born, 6 months later. That won't work this year, or the next. How do I set a slaughter date on lambs that not only are not born yet, but are not even conceived? We bought a steer that is still on pasture and will be delivered now that the pigs will be gone. I booked a March date in 2021 for him, in March of this year! It is CRAZY!

 

[farmerjan]

The thing to do now is to set a date for the slaughter and a couple more ....one a month for the following 2-3 months. Then, if you do have to cancel, they have people waiting in line for a possibility of getting a cancellation. We have 5 dates next year, and I am going to call today and get one a month starting as soon as they have an opening for the next 6 months after that. So just figure when you normally would have gotten a date, and then start with that and get a few more in a row. We have people wanting beef more and more, so are going to keep a few of these ones we were selling to this one guy, with various defects, bad eyes, different things that are noticeable but not life threatening but will hurt them at the stockyard; and feeding them out to a slaughter weight of some size. Some are going to get killed a little smaller because the people don't want so much meat but it won't have the finish on it either. My Jersey steer is probably going to go in Jan or Feb....I couldn't get a date til next AUGUST but son is switching with me for one of the dates he has, and he has a couple for NEXT NOV & DEC (2021) already.
Yes @Baymule it is totally insane. Some of it is that people that used to maybe raise a few on their back pasture to keep the grass down, then sold for some money in their pocket, have decided that they need to put at least one in their own freezer since it was hard to find meat during this shutdown. But it is just that so many have decided to start raising their own; I am not sure how long that will last when they have to make sure they are fed and watered in the cold winter months and such.... but we will see. If things do get back to more of the "old normal" you will see alot of this BS disappear. But I am not sure there will ever be a return to the "old normal".....

 

[Baymule]

The place we are going to this morning is booked until May 2021 and will not accept any more until who knows. Our pig customer likes the sausage from this particular place so we are motivated to use this place. Their pig pays for Feed , processing for both pigs and a little left over. It’s a win-win for us.

 

[Baymule]

Got pigs unloaded, went home, dropped trailer and going to get Feed now. I mentioned to the owner that we had to book our steer elsewhere. When we were giving cutting instructions, he came in the office and booked us a date for it in March. But he still wouldn’t book a date for pigs in August 2021.