Potbelly Pig for meat *GRAPHIC PICS*

[misfitmorgan]

Thanks for the breakdown.

Your welcome.....pics later tonight.

 

[misfitmorgan]

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

 

[TAH]

She looks so good

 

[Big A Ranch]

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?

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

 

[misfitmorgan]

She looks so good

She was tasty

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.

 

[Big A Ranch]

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

 

[misfitmorgan]

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.

 

[Alicia]

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

 

[misfitmorgan]

No Problem

 

[Mini Horses]

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!

 

[misfitmorgan]

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.