This little piggie went to.....the freezer

Back in August we brought home five cute little piggies!

Four little boy pigs and one little lady pig (Barb E. Que as we call her). For the next seven months we raised them, fed and watered them, housed them. They drank our extra raw milk that we didn't use in time. They ate our left over food, and believe me they will eat anything including freezer burned whole chickens that thawed and went bad. Other than a short time when they were little and needed shelter they have been outside breathing fresh air and enjoying the sunshine their entire life, right up until they went to visit the butcher shop.

As this process works and has for all of human existence since the domestication of animals in the very beginning of humanity the time has come for the hogs to take the one way trip to the butcher. We took the two larger hogs in last week and picked up the results today and it is quite a lot of meat! The total hanging weight of the two hogs was a little over 300 lbs and our haul (see picture to the right) included over 100 lbs of sausage and quite a lot of loins and roasts. The picture doesn't even include the bacon (20 lbs) and the hams (24 lbs.) as those are being smoked and aren't ready yet. Needless to say I am excited to get the bacon!

Bag o' pork lard

We are figuring that all in we have around $2 per pound for fresh, home raised pork when you consider the initial cost, the feed and the cost of processing. That seems like a pretty good return on our investment if you ask me and you can't put a price on the satisfaction of eating meat you raised yourself with your kids.

This has been a pretty enlightening experience for us. Now we get to find out what cuts we like, what we should get more of in the future or less of. I am hoping to get a meat grinder and natural casings so we can make our own kielbasa.

I might show these pics to the remaining pigs as a warning to keep them in line...