Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Pig update - ten weeks on...
We have sold four of Duchess`s offspring and the six remaining are just over 11 weeks old - so hopefully we will have PORK for Xmas !!
We have not decided if we will keep one of the girls as company for Duchess.
Unfortunately the price of pig food just keeps going up and so we have to consider the finances.

We have just finished the last pork joint from last year and we have found that one pig lasts us a year with another one done to saucages, gammon, bacon and ham joints.
When our children visit they go away laden with pork, trout and other veggies!
Although they think we are in our dotage - they are grateful for all our produce - which leading their busy urban lives they do not have time or the space to do what we do in our rural heaven !

WD and OH

So do you reckon two pigs, that is 1 per person per year?
At what age are they processed and do you do it?

Well - yes - but we also give our 3 children and their families quite a bit of pork also!
The two pigs ( for our use) will go the butcher to be humanely slaughtered and butchered.
One pig will be collected the same week all cut up into chops and joints etc. and the other pig takes about 4 weeks to be made into bacon, saucages , gammon and hams.

The other 3 pigs will be butchered to be sold as either half or a whole pig for our regular customers!

Its much easier to send them all at the same time to minimise the upset to the animals.

They usually go when they are about 18 weeks old or a nice size!

In the UK -if you are selling your meat it has to be done at an authorised butcher/slaughter house.
If it is for your own consumption - you should have an authorised slaughterer who can do it on your premises. Obviously ideal in the winter time when you can *hang* the meat to mature.

At least you know that when you are eating your own home grown pork - that the animal has had a good life and you know what it has been fed on and also that it is not injected with water as supermarkets tend to do!

Piggies dont smell.

They have a slight sent of bacon, but they dont smell.

They're actually really clean. Ours could be seen running from one side of the farm to the other to go to his chosen toilet space. Always in the same spot, and as long as they have enough room, they have no interest in that spot for anything else.

Why do they have such big snouts then?

All the better to dig with.