We bought a hog!

[BrianB]

No, not as a pet. First time DW & I have bought a whole animal. It was from a small operation that raises, slaughters, and processes all on their farm.

Hanging weight was 265#, net weight was about 180#. Total cost $371. That comes out to just over $2 per pound.

We have a 7 cubic foot freezer and it filled nearly 3/4 of the space. Yummy bacon and chops and shoulder and smoked ham and sausage!

BrianB

 

[Christine]

What a great idea!

 

[RAE]

DW and I buy larger portions of meat from farmers every year. We have bought a half-hog in the past, but this year we bought a whole lamb, and a 1/4 side of beef. We know the farmer, and know how the animals were raised. The meat is high-quality, and the price is fair for what we get. I rarely buy meat from the grocery store anymore.

I'm sure you will enjoy the meat from your hog..........

 

[audreyh1]

Wish we could do that. But we do have access to great mea market that buys from local farmers and sells heritage pork.

 

[BrianB]

We've had their meat before as several of DW's family buy from the same farm. It is excellent.

They packaged it exactly per our requests (we wanted small packages) and smoked the bacon and hams (quartered) so it's convenient for us as a two-person household.

 

[CardsFan]

No, not as a pet. First time DW & I have bought a whole animal. It was from a small operation that raises, slaughters, and processes all on their farm.

Hanging weight was 265#, net weight was about 180#. Total cost $371. That comes out to just over $2 per pound.

We have a 7 cubic foot freezer and it filled nearly 3/4 of the space. Yummy bacon and chops and shoulder and smoked ham and sausage!

BrianB

Did they process (smoke) the ham and bacon and stuff the sausage for that price?

In any event, even if there is 30# of bones and wasted fat, you paid less than $2.50/lb for some fresh protein, and delicious meat.

 

[tmm99]

Hey, nice! I used to get a 1/2 pastured-fed pork and 1/4 grass-fed cow when I lived in California. As long as you enjoy all the cuts you get in that particular proportion, it's a good way to buy as it's less expensive and you can pick the breed, etc.

 

[MRG]

I've helped raise and slaughter a few. I helped neuter a 300+ pound hog, he died a few days later. It's better to farm out those tasks.

Many years ago DW came home drunk with a baby pot belly piglet. Cute as all get out and....I can still see DW waking up, hungover, to a piglet "rooting" her face[emoji3059]. Still embarrasses her 30+ years later.

 

[rk911]

color me disappointed. i was hoping for some photos of your new Harley!

 

[RAE]

I find that freezing meats affects the flavor. Not always, but often. Also, meats that are frozen for several months tend to have a more noticeable degradation in flavor. I would rather eat less meat less often but get it as fresh as possible. That's just a personal preference. Maybe if you vaccum sealed each item it wouldn't be as much of an issue, but it doesn't look like that was done in this case. Everything is wrapped in paper. Quality always wins over quantity.

I'll have to respectfully disagree with this. The frozen meat we get from a local farmer is very high quality - grass fed (beef), no antibiotics or other drugs, raised and butchered humanely. If the meat is wrapped properly and kept at a proper freezer temperature (around 0 degrees F or slightly colder), the quality remains good for a long time, in my experience. Fresh meat (not frozen) is great, but what is the source of the meat you are buying wherever you get it from.........do you know? Do you know how the animals were raised? If you do, that's great.........many people do not.

If you prefer the taste of meat that has never been frozen, that's fine,
but I don't think you can reasonably argue that the meat you get is higher quality than the meat some of us purchase from local farmers.

 

[RobbieB]

I ran this by my mother one day when I was young. I knew what meat cost because I read the labels. I asked Ma why we weren't taking advantage of the "half beef side" offers since we did have a big chest freezer.

She said every once in a while we get some tough meat at the super. Disappointing to be sure, but that's only 1 meal. You don't get to sample the side of beef before you buy it. If it's tough you just got 200 pounds of tough beef.

 

[RobbieB]

Pops had a slab poured in the garage for it. Big Frigidaire, like 8 feet wide by 3 feet deep by 4 feet high. Ma kept it full of "on sale" items which got freezer burned and discarded a lot.

I learned that you can't freeze snowballs for summertime.

 

[RAE]

I think if I knew I had a year's worth of frozen "discount pork" sitting in a deep freeze that I was committed to eating my way through, I would probably dread it.

You might dread it, but I can tell you that the pork, beef, and lamb we buy (frozen) from a local farmer tastes just great, even after being in the freezer for a while. And, I would hardly call it "discount" meat, because the quality of the meat is higher than any meat you can buy that came from one of the major confined-animal meat producers. You might want to look into exactly where some of that fresh meat you like came from, and how the animals were raised (and what they were fed). All of that ultimately goes into the quality of meat that is produced. Again, if you prefer fresh meat from the grocery store, that's fine, keep buying it. But I don't think you can make a convincing argument that the meat some of us get from local farmers is of inferior quality in any way, whether frozen or not.

 

[RetiredAt55.5]

color me disappointed. i was hoping for some photos of your new Harley!

+1

 

[Winemaker]

DW and I purchased a hog for 6 years until the farmer/rancher stopped. Raised on excess produce from local produce store, no need for shots. made our own bacon, sausage and hams. Absolutely delicious, even after amount of work involved.

 

[eytonxav]

And I thought this was going to be a post about a motorcycle.

 

[Bamaman]

We're so fortunate that pork is so reasonably priced, as we eat quite a bit of it.

I know a guy that raises show cattle--Black Angus'. When it's time, he moves 3-4 to a small pen to feed'em out prior to slaughter. He gets $1.50 a pound on the hoof for them, and they'll often be 1500 lbs--$2250 after paying the butcher. That's a serious investment.

But when he sells the steaks, he gets $12.99 a pound for ribeyes and strip sirloins. You can see the difference in quality between his beef and supermarket meat.

No wonder we eat so much pork and chicken. It's just a shame that pork has been Tysonized to where it's so lean, as there's nothing better to barbeque than a big, fat hog.

 

[aaronc879]

And I thought this was going to be a post about a motorcycle.

That was my first thought too. I'm glad I was wrong. I would rather hear about a dead pig than a loud motorcycle.

 

[audreyh1]

I have no problem with frozen meat, poultry or seafood. Although I don’t leave it frozen for very long. We vacuum pack anything to freeze.

 

[RetireBy90]

I have no problem with frozen meat, poultry or seafood. Although I don’t leave it frozen for very long. We vacuum pack anything to freeze.

Got a vacuum sealer for my brother when he moved last year. Saw it worked well for him so we got one and use it a lot. Only about 2 months, but we can buy family packs of meat and seems to work well in freezer so far.

 

[pb4uski]

And I thought this was going to be a post about a motorcycle.

+1 I was expecting a picture of a Harley.

 

[audreyh1]

Got a vacuum sealer for my brother when he moved last year. Saw it worked well for him so we got one and use it a lot. Only about 2 months, but we can buy family packs of meat and seems to work well in freezer so far.

It certainly solves the freezer burn problem.