butchering weight

[Karl Atkins]

Hello,
I noticed most people butcher the hogs around 5 or 6 months at around 250 pounds, Why is that ? why not let them get bigger? just curious thanks. Our will at 250 come around Feb. almost butcher time

 

[OneFineAcre]

The Pork is leaner
After 250 they put on more fat
We did 3 earlier this year and let ours go to a little over 300
I think that weight is ideal with a little more fat
But that's my opinion

 

[Karl Atkins]

Thank you for the reply.

 

[farmerjan]

Not only is the pork a little leaner if you stay under the 250-300 range; the rate of conversion from feed to meat starts to really fall off. You are putting in alot more feed per pound of gain after the 250 weight or so. They are "done growing" so to speak so are then "porking up". Years ago the standard thing was to get pigs in late mar or april, then butchering was Thanksgiving time. Most old timers only had one set of pigs a year because there were too many other things to be doing and certain "jobs" were done at certain times a year. They were in the 7-9 month range and most were in the 300 + range.
Don't forget, too, years ago the fat was rendered down into lard and cracklin's. Nowadays, hogs are seldom scalded and scraped, the hams and bacons aren't cured with the skin on, and few even have tasted lard let alone depended on it for their "grease or shortening". A 250 lb hog is also easier to hang and skin and all that for the average person doing their own butchering; years ago people got together and did butchering/scalding parties and would do hogs for several families at a time. Many hands.....

 

[Karl Atkins]

Yeah we got a late start but it will workout good for us. My boys are going to be off work for the winter. Hanging the meat we won’t have to deal with flies and the chilly nights will cool the meat. Being our first go we will probably do 1 or two hogs over the weekend.once we get our system down it will go faster. Thanks for the information.

 

[Baymule]

Karl, have you butchered hogs before? Are you going to scald and scrape or skin? Post pictures as a tutorial!

We butchered hogs in June of this year, the closest slaughter date we could get was too far off and those pigs were eating like PIGS! LOL I posted pictures of our processing. It was a neighborhood thing, 3 pigs, 1 for us and 2 for neighbors.

https://www.backyardherds.com/threads/feeder-pigs-2017.35395/

 

[OneFineAcre]

You all just go for slautering you own hogs
We did 3 hogs and 2 steers last year and I'm glad to pay someone to do it
No question with a hog if you can do it yourself that's a financial winner
But I can win a little less and let someone else do it

 

[Karl Atkins]

Karl, have you butchered hogs before? Are you going to scald and scrape or skin? Post pictures as a tutorial!

We butchered hogs in June of this year, the closest slaughter date we could get was too far off and those pigs were eating like PIGS! LOL I posted pictures of our processing. It was a neighborhood thing, 3 pigs, 1 for us and 2 for neighbors.

https://www.backyardherds.com/threads/feeder-pigs-2017.35395/

We are going to butcher. I don’t know anything about scalding and what the benefits are to doing it. Maybe next hogs we will try it . We also have 3 to butcher the two sons and us so it going to be a family affair LOL I am going to look at those pictures you shared thank you.

 

[Karl Atkins]

You all just go for slautering you own hogs
We did 3 hogs and 2 steers last year and I'm glad to pay someone to do it
No question with a hog if you can do it yourself that's a financial winner
But I can win a little less and let someone else do it

Boy that does sound look like a lot of work. Did you do all of them Back to back? With 6 six of us we should be able to get a smooth assembly line going and once we get the cuts down it should go quickly (hopefully) we have time and not be rushed. But we might end up like you on the next go round LOL at least we can say we gave a try.

 

[Baymule]

We skinned ours. Then in October, durned if we didn't go buy 2 more hogs! We took them to slaughter, it cost $1.05 a pound, vacuum sealed.

https://www.backyardherds.com/threads/baymules-pigs-2017-2018.36803/