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SusieGee wrote:... 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

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.....

Thurston Garden wrote: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.....

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

SusieGee wrote:I'll also have somewhere to get rid of my excess courgettes and squash towards the end!

Let your excess courgettes grow into massive marrows, then split them up the middle lengthways and the pigs will happilly hoover our the inside leaving you will a curiously clean and smooth skin

They have arrived. Got them on Thursday and enjoying having them here. They are in a plot about 40m x 30m which I want cleared so I can plant some more Xmas trees. I have previously used round up to clear the grass but alway been disappointed as it keeps coming back!! So this time the pig/Xmas tree experiment starts.