Our Amish friend let us raise a pig this year at his farm.
Raising a pig is some work, but man is it so worth it in the end.
We spent Friday butchering our Pig, Took us 8 hours, with 3 of us working at it. It was alot of work We made 6 different kinds of sausage, Pork Chops, Pork Roast, Ribs, Tenderloin, Bacon and Ham.
The ham and bacons are curing in maple/brown sugar cure and will get smoked in Applewood for about 13 hours.
We split the pig with my fiance's brother and worked out to about 250lbs of pork for each of us. Itll last my fiance and I about a year.
Worked out to be 75 cents a pound by raising and butchering it ourselves. And nothing beats that fresh meat. At least I know what I put into the pig. I'll never buy store bought again.
For those of you who have never done this, it is a wonderful experience. We are going to raise a steer next year so we have fresh beef
I used to live on a farm. My parents and grandparents would raise a steer about every other year. Never had any pigs, just cattle. I know what you mean about raising your own meat. What you raise does have a different flavor than what you buy in the store.
I used to buy a pig and my brother-in-law would raise it on his friends property. He usually raised 6-8 pigs, a different arrangement for each pig. My arrangement was, I bought the pig, he raised it and we split grain costs on that pig.
We used a butcher and and split the meat and processing cost. We did it for about 3 years. Then his friend moved.
It was a good to know where my food came from, and how it was raised.
Jim
I like it!
Knowing what went into your meat is the way to go. We are going to have to look into that around here.
In the meantime, I'll just have to keep doing it the old fashioned way!
Congratulations to each of you!
In hindsight, this seems to be great foresight.
Just an observation,
Jim