Potbelly Pig for meat *GRAPHIC PICS*

[Baymule]

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!!

 

[misfitmorgan]

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

 

[Baymule]

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.

 

[misfitmorgan]

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.

 

[Baymule]

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.

 

[misfitmorgan]

Hopefully good pork!

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

 

[frustratedearthmother]

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

 

[greybeard]

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.

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?

 

[Pastor Dave]

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

 

[Baymule]

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.