In raising the pigs, our goal had been to get the biggest pig to 200 lbs, because that's a pretty standard weight to aim for prior to butchering. A local farmer had told us the way to estimate a pigs weight is to measure their torso right behind the front legs. When the tape measures 36”, the pig weighs about 100 lbs. Every inch beyond that is a gain of about 10 lbs. We only ever measured the largest pig, because we knew he would be the first to go. When we measured him at the end, we figured the pig was around 180 lbs because he measured about 44”. Not exactly accurate, when you're trying to measure a large, moving animal, but it is the only way we know of to get an estimate. And I'm glad it was even that big. We seemed challenged in finding enough food for them (and still are, I guess, since there are two left), but with grain and 45 lbs of apples going to the three of them each day, we didn't think it would still be so hard to get them to gain weight.
This morning we went over to the butchers house to wrap the pig as he cut it. He had skinned it, gutted it, and taken the head off, and the two sides were hanging on hooks. Each side weighed 60 lbs, for a total hanging weight of 120 lbs. Since we had estimated the pigs live weight at 180 lbs before he was killed, there was a loss of about 1/3. The butcher cut the sides with Orrin (holding Oliver) directing him as to which cuts we wanted and how thick. I put the cuts into plastic bags, and then we labeled them. We had it cut into bacon, chops, roasts and a little bit of ground. We know we have another pig to butcher, so we will probably get more ground pork then. The meat filled a little more than half of a large garbage can.
It is a bit of a transition to go from thinking about that animal as a pig, and now to think of it as meat. We had called him Whitey, because he had two white splotches on one side of his black hide. We had heard that it isn't generally a good idea to name your food, but we found it easier to call them each something different so that we could differentiate them when we talked about them. The other male pig we just called #2, because he was always smaller than Whitey (as well as the obvious Austin Powers reference...). And we had named the girl Isabel, thinking we'd keep her to breed her, although we still haven't decided about that, because she's probably barely over 100 lbs and can't be bred unless she's around 200 lbs.
We had pork chops for lunch, to see how they were. I think we were a little nervous beforehand, because we weren't sure what to expect. I mean, this was our first go at raising pigs, what if somehow we'd missed some important aspect of raising them, and the meat turned out terribly? Fortunately, that was not the case. The chops were very good, and we were relieved. Beforehand, we acknowledged and thanked the pig for providing us with that meat, and also acknowledged the part that we all played in bringing that food to the table. Orrin mostly feeds the animals (grain, and picking buckets of apples), as well as sets up the electric fencing and moves them to new areas once they've cleared an area of food – roots, plants, grass, etc., so he plays the largest role of the three of us. Oliver is with Orrin frequently for the feeding chores, either walking along or in the backpack, and he occasionally likes throwing apples in the pigs paddock for them. I feed them occasionally too, sometimes taking the kitchen compost to them, or helping to pick apples for them.
And now, we have loads of pork in the freezer, and our bellies will be happy.
