In the past, I have never really been a pig lover. Because I grew up in the city I had never even really SEEN a live pig until I moved here. Even then I had only seen them at the county fair. This past summer I was up for a new adventure and decided to try raising a pig. This (was) "Swine" - pretty original huh?! lol. He came to me as a 40lb feeder pig from a livestock auction in southern Wisconsin. He was an affordable investment ($12.00). And he wouldn't take long to get to butcher size, I figured he would be gone around deer hunting season.
At that time I knew absolutely nothing about pigs! The first thing I did was ran down to my local Tractor Supply company and purchased a book on raising swine. I read the book cover to cover and learned a great deal on how to care for him. Other than castrating him, he was pretty much low maint.
Castrating him???? Say WHAT!? *I* had to do this?? Yikes! Can't I just use a rubber band to get them off?? um.., that would be a big NOPE. I had to cut "them" off. Did I mention I'm a WOMAN? lol. Some things in life I feel are best left to men!
My first learning curve- How to lop off a pig's manhood. Note to self- NEVER chicken out till the damn thing gets over 100lbs and you have to use 4 people and ropes to hold him down! Yep, I was too scarred to do the job. I was afraid that I would do something drastically wrong. So I kept putting it off. When the time came, I used Lidocaine to numb the "area" and gave the pig a sedative (which didn't seem to help much!- You can't imagine how much strength and squeal a pig has! When your coming at him with a knife!) So there I was... scalpel in hand... I made my first incision, exposed the first testicle, did the deed and proceeded with the second testicle. All while shaking like a leaf! After everything was said and done I was pretty damn proud of myself! I couldn't believe *I* had actually done it! I am woman hear me roar!!!! Or at least keep your testicles away from me! LOL!
Anyway, Swine turned out to be an awesome project. He ate all of the leftovers that were in the fridge. And all the fallen apples and pears off the tree, in addition to his normal feed. I was amazed at all he would eat. I even found a place for random chicken eggs I would find - Yep, Swine ate them with a smile! And there's nothing like listening to your pig snore when your doing a barn check at night. Talk about crack you up! The thing snored so loud when he slept you could hear him outside the barn!
Swine ate, and ate, and ate... He knew exactly when it was feeding time - he would start to do the "I'm hungry" grunt. He also loved water! We learned right away that pigs need a special water er (kind of like a gerbil water er- a long bottle with a special nipple on the end) Because he was notorious for flipping over his water bucket and playing in the water.
On the day he was brought into butcher we tried to guess how much he weighed (above photo was from the day he was sent off) I guessed 220lbs, my husband guessed 260lbs. My husband was supposed to take the trailer through the weigh scale but he forgot (ugh!) I can tell you though that his hanging weight was 291lbs! Hanging weight is his carcass weight minus skin, head, guts, feet. So his live weight was prob. around 350lbs! Oh my gosh!!! WOW!
He gave us a great yield- His box weight (the amount you eat) was 275.5 lbs. So there was only 15.5lbs of scrap (bones, etc.) Not bad if I do say. He gave us: 42lbs of ham, 31lbs of bacon (side pork), 23.5lbs of ground pork, 41.5lbs of pork chops, 22.5lbs of pork steaks, 17.5lbs of roasts, 8.0lbs of spare ribs, 5.0lbs of country style ribs, 12.5lbs of hocks and 69lbs of fat.
Processing cost $158.04 (Kill & Cool & Cut & Wrap hog) We then took our whole hams and side pork into a different butcher shop for smoking and curing, cutting & wrapping. That cost us an additional $93.00. It would have been cheaper to have it all done at one place, but the place that did the hams couldn't get us in until the end of Jan.! But the hams/bacon we could bring in anytime.
Now that Swine is gone, my fridge is being over run by leftovers. I sure miss having him clean up around here! But come spring, we will do it all again... Is it a bad thing when all I want for Christmas is 2 bottles of Lidocaine for castrating??? LOL!
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