What breed

[Royd Wood]

Thanks for all the great information!

A few more questions...

I am in WV, is a 3 sided shelter okay for winter? If I have to keep them for a year they would be young during the winter months.

Will be fine - Our Large Blacks live out all year and thats in Southern Ontario Friends of mine in Manatoba do the same and its cold cold cold there

What is an average size for a full grown Large Black?

Mine dont seem to stop growing - my 2 year old boar must be up towards 700 lb

If I want to process Large Blacks in the fall I should buy the piglets in the late summer, early fall of the preceeding year, right?

That would work for sure - you could have a 300lb by next fall 2013 - just dont load em with grain / comm feed as your butcher will be sliceing off fat to find the pork
A nice mixed diet of Fruit,veg, grass, grain (rolled oats & rolled barley)dairy products and eggs

 

[manybirds]

cornish, wish i would have used your butchering method! ours was terrible maybe if we ever decide to process our own again we'll do this.
royd is your boar really close to 700! i know pigs get really big but that seems huge!

 

[Cornish Heritage]

I am in WV, is a 3 sided shelter okay for winter? If I have to keep them for a year they would be young during the winter months.

Will be fine - Our Large Blacks live out all year and thats in Southern Ontario Friends of mine in Manatoba do the same and its cold cold cold there

You'll be surprised at how hardy these pigs are. We were in northern Montana before moving here where it is also cold, cold, cold! The Porta Huts are surprisingly warm. Check out your local Craigslist, you will often find them for sale on there or in your local paper. Buying them new can be expensive. We bought all ours used

What is an average size for a full grown Large Black?

Mine dont seem to stop growing - my 2 year old boar must be up towards 700 lb

Have to admit ours are not that big. We are very careful how much we feed our boars - our mature boars are probably around 450 to 500 lbs & big babies. We do a lot of farm tours here & you can pretty much guarantee that Martin will come up, want a scratch & just roll over for folks. Most folks cannot get over how docile these big guys are. Of course you do need to respect them & teach them manners as they have 2 sets of tusks that are very sharp. They would not mean to hurt you but if they rub those tusks on your leg you would know about it!

If I want to process Large Blacks in the fall I should buy the piglets in the late summer, early fall of the preceeding year, right?

That would work for sure - you could have a 300lb by next fall 2013 - just dont load em with grain / comm feed as your butcher will be sliceing off fat to find the pork
A nice mixed diet of Fruit,veg, grass, grain (rolled oats & rolled barley)dairy products and eggs

Great advice from Royd here. We normally butcher ours around 250lbs as we like them lean. Other folks like to wait until they are closer to 300lbs. You will get more lard at this stage. We render all the fat we can get from the pig - back fat & the fat around the kidneys. It is great for cooking with. So many people make the mistake of feeding these pigs out too fast & they just get fat, lazy & many times their bones cannot grow fast enough to keep up with the weight gain. You want to keep them healthy & active.

We prefer farm kill for all our animals - so much less stress. We do not have the facilities to process a cow here but when it is time to put some beef in the freezer, we are fortunate to be able to get a guy out to do the farm kill. He just drives into the field, the cow looks up & bang, she/he is down. No stress at all. He skins & guts here & then takes it off to the processors.

Liz

 

[Royd Wood]

Farm kills are perfect - no stress but in Ontario Canada if selling to the public then off to the slaughter house for meat inspection, chickens, cattle, lamb, pig, pheasant, turkey and duck we have them all processed.

Is that the same rules in the states ??????????

To be honest I dont fancy leading old Daisy down the barn for a final flake of hay and the thought of doing hundreds of chickens and 200 ducks NO THANKS

Edit to add - never killed pigs, sheep or cattle at the farm but been through the whole process at my butchers in the early days and very happy with what he does for us - can't say the same for poultry, duck, pheasants and turkeys- i have to be there week after week to get things right

sorry op Largh Blacks gets my vote

 

[Teeah3612]

I am going to have to print this thread and keep it. You all have given me some great information

I plan to render any lard that I can from these pigs for cooking so a little fat is a good thing.

Now to build the enclosure and find me some piggys! Thanks again!

 

[Teeah3612]

One more question...

Does anyone know of any breeders of Large Blacks in WV? Ohio and Kentucky would not be too far to go, depending on the location.

 

[Cornish Heritage]

Is that the same rules in the states ??????????

The rules vary from state to state so ti all depends on where you live. We only butcher for ourselves so can do what we like

Does anyone know of any breeders of Large Blacks in WV? Ohio and Kentucky would not be too far to go, depending on the location.

Check out the Member List on the LBHA website - http://largeblackhogassociation.org/lbha-members/ Richard is in the process of making this list so that it is updated every 3 mths, there are some old breeders on here that although members are no longer breeding LB's PLUS not everyone lists their contact info so it can be a little frustrating! You may also want to visit the forums as folks with LB pigs to sell will sometimes advertise on there.

Just do your research - make sure the breeder has registered pigs. If you have ANY questions regarding whether a breeder is legitimate feel free to give us a call.

Liz

 

[EllieMay]

WoW! Some great advice here!!

We, too, plan on getting a pig or two for meat.

We want to pasture raise it along with our sheep and feed it the grain as needed, too.

You mentioned getting a registered animal . . . But if it's just for meat, does it matter whether it's registered or not?
Like we were thinking about just getting a piglet at an auction and raising it for the 10-14 months it takes to get it to a butcher weight.

 

[Cornish Heritage]

You mentioned getting a registered animal . . . But if it's just for meat, does it matter whether it's registered or not?

No if you are just going to raise a pig for meat then registered is totally unnecessary. We sell all our culls off as feeders & so they are much cheaper than our registered breeding stock.

Personally we will no longer purchase any animal from an auction. There is just too much risk. You have NO idea where that animal has come from, whether it is sick or healthy or what it has been exposed to. You could end up bringing a disease onto your farm that will affect your other animals. There are many many sick animals taken to the auctions. You are much better off purchasing direct from a farm. Yes you may pay a little more but it will be worth it in the end.

Pigs are herd animals so I would definitely advise purchasing two. They will be much more content if there are two of them plus they can help to keep each other warm once it gets cold.

Liz