Buying weaners

[Green Aura]

Sounds exciting - I'd love to have livestock, need a divorce first though Just joking.

Sorry can't offer any advice, Stonehead's yer man for that - if he's not on here for a while, check out his blog.

I think red might have pigs too, so she may be able to help.

[ShaunP]

Hi everyone, this is my first post.

I am about to take delivery of two Tamworth's in 3 weeks time. The going rate in Gloucester is £50 each!!!

[MuddyWitch]

Welcome to ISH, ShaunP.

Whilst I love Tamworths (though they can be a bit belligerent) shouldn't you be raising Old Spots, being in Gloucester?

MW

[red]

They say its not ideal to raise weaners through winter cos of the keeping warm thing - but I hav no experience of this and I guess it depends on the housing.. and are they going to be outdoors most of the time?

the cost of rearing a pig.. well its a bit close - the cost of feeding the weaner for 6 months vs the cost of buying a whole pig direct from the butcher - one vets visit and you are into a loss. ( but actually you are very unlikely to need a vet.), so if all goes well, if you dont overfeed etc.. think in the region of £150 quid a pig. You have to allow for food - thats the biggest expense, bedding (few bales of straw not a biggy) slaughter and butchery, oh and the original cost of your weaner which is around 35-50 quid around here.

Presumably the friends have an appropriate set up and transport etc and you have an abbatoir nearby ?

you can spend lots and lots of butchery - and get sausages hams fancy boned out cuts etc, or you can DIY. and having studied the videos etc.. it does not look that hard.. this is our first year keeping pigs and we are getting the butchers to cut into large manageable bits and we shall take it from there.. this keeps butchery costs down.
Unfortunately, it is illegal to feed pigs kitchen scraps, but they can have all sorts out of the garden. ours particularly like the greenery from sweetcorn.

Remember when you are comparing cost of rearing a pig vs cost of buying a butchered pig, to compare like for like, ie is it a rare breed, is it outdoor happy life, is it organic etc.
We are not organic, but for us its very important our animals have good lives. Seeing them charge about having fun is well worth it.


Assuming your friends have the right set up, I'd go for it, it might end up costing a tad more than buying pork, but you will have an ace experience, and know exactly what sort of life the pig had before becoming pork. and there is a good chance you will come in under budget. But I don't know enough about the winter rearing to advise.

[red]

we took ours to the abattoir yesterday.. so.. we no longer own pigs. we do have an awful lot of liver now.. and lots of pork expected tomorrow!

[Green Aura]

And send sausages.......

[Thurston Garden]

I did a similar thing a couple of years ago with relatives who bought 'shares' in our Berkshires (same breed as Red had). It was two years ago and I recall that it worked out at about £3.50/kg. That said, I think some of the shareholders thought they were going to get lots of bacon and roasting joints. Baconers (well, back bacon anyway) comes off much older pigs - in the Berkshires case, my baconers were put away at 12-14 months. I only did it once - there's an additional 6 months of feed cost involved. My 'shareholders' paid me on pay day accorind to my expenditure - more in the first and last months to cover buying the weaner/killing and butchering. That way I was not footing all the costs (I was a skint smallholder!) and they did not miss a tenner here or twenty there.

Lots of the 'shareholders' did not want half a head/offal/trotters etc. This would actually reduce the amount of meat they took and increase the price. I am sure that feed costs will have gone up too since I did this. Although refused to bow to the Soil Association's financial demands andbe certified, we bought in organic weaners (£60 each 2 years ago) and fed them organic feed (£8 for a 20kg bag from Roslyn where Dolly the Sheep was created). My pig farmer used to sell whole or half pigs at £5/kg, but could not call these organic as the butcher who cut them up was not certified. Her main market product was done fully organic and vac packed for markets and the like - this was much dearer though.

I can remember that killing and butchering two pigs cost me £60. I paid the butcher extra though because I thought that was light and he did it during the school October holidays (the Tattie Holidays up here lol) and he should have been at home with his family!

Go for it assuming your friends are all set up! I miss not having pigs almost as much as I miss eating them. Red - I am jealous! Sounds like you are about to have a busy weekend ahead sorting out all them cuts of delicious pig

[red]

... and my understanding is that home grown pork tastes like no other Do you have all your pork back as joints etc or do you 'make' bacon? or do you in fact have to leave the pigs to grow longer for bacon? never sure of the difference

Susie

you can pay the butcher extra to have them make ham out of the joints or bacon.. or you can do it yourself.

As TG said - pigs for sausage and bacon tend to be grown on longer.. porkers are around 6-8 months ish age. - however there are always scraps of meat and you can bone out the cheaper cuts such as shoulder or hand for sausages.. or use the belly for sausage.. and you can still make bacon out of smaller pigs.

personally.. we are getting the pork back in large lumps then butchering it further outselves,.. then freezing and letting ourselves think about it.. as this is our first time, and I'm really not sure without looking at it what I will want - eg the loin into chops or as roasting joints.. etc

[Thurston Garden]

Cheeks are good for saurages as well as all the cuttings. Cheek meat is very good too - think of all the excersise it gets!

Red - we made dry cured streaky bacon using HFW's recipe from the bellies. Cut the nipples off (oyah!) and salt them in a wooden wine box. Wrapped in a tea towel it lasted about 6 months in the fridge. Makes great lardons or thick cut bacon. mmmmmmmm.....

[red]

Cheeks are good for saurages as well as all the cuttings. Cheek meat is very good too - think of all the excersise it gets!

Red - we made dry cured streaky bacon using HFW's recipe from the bellies. Cut the nipples off (oyah!) and salt them in a wooden wine box. Wrapped in a tea towel it lasted about 6 months in the fridge. Makes great lardons or thick cut bacon. mmmmmmmm.....

oh i made bacon last spring (with bought pork - needed to practice!) but left the nipples on.. didn't know it was the done thing to cut em off.. ouchy.....

[Green Aura]

I know I currently get my belly pork joints (that I use to make bacon) from T**** but they never have nipples - do you think they breed special nippleless pigs for them. I wouldn't put it past them.

[red]

they'll be plenty of other opportunities.. and summer has to be easier

[Thurston Garden]

At three weeks, surely they should be with their Mum?

6 to 8 weeks is the age to be buying weaners I think.

[grahamhobbs]

I wish I had the photo I took of my friend in France, sat huddled up, with a big scarf over her head, stoking a timber fire under a big cauldron in the yard with the snow falling and lying all around. She was boilding up the pork for rillettes ( a very rough sort of pate), it had to boil all day.
Most years they kill a pig and convert it into various pate, rillettes, small roasts etc and put mainly into Kilner type jars. Pork has never tasted so good and is available all year.

[Thurston Garden]

Gotcha.

I always tried to get Feb born weaners. Collect them in April, put them away late October. That way they had the best of the summer and you were dealing with the meat in the cool of October. That said, Berkshires are a hardy breed and do well outside all year round, even here in Jockland.