[SteveHants]

Mak, the abattoir costs and arm and a leg   
I have nothing to go by as I haven't done this before but this is the breakdown
Slaughter and cutting £85. He charged £45 for one and £40 for the other as she was a bit smaller.
Vac packing £20
16.34 kilos of sausages £31.04
total £136.04
Sally

Its been a few years since I had weaners now, but the killing and cutting seem pretty expensive. Once you start getting sausages etc made, it does become expensive, I remember that much (I used to share pigs with my then boss - he had sausages/bacon made, I don't like sausages much and I made my own bacon, we did used to run a smokery after all...   ).

[deborah jane]

Wow - it all looks lovely. I'm new to all of this, my boys won't be ready to go until after Xmas. Was it easy to take them?

[Bionic]

Deborah Jane,
It was much easier to take them than I had exected. That was partly due to the relief of them going so that I didn't have to wade through the mud each day to feed them. See my other post "the deed is done"
I will have to rethink their pen for next year if we are going to get as much rain as we did this year.
Sally

[Scotsdumpy]

what lovely pork!

slaughter and butchery costs are quite high in most places now - I suppose it depends on where you live. The days of getting your animal slaughtered and butchered for less than £40 are long gone.

I don't have the expertise, space or 'clean' conditions to slaughter and home butcher - the rules of home slaughter in the UK make it prohibitive too. The guy who lived here used to slaughter his own bullocks on site - there are still blocks and tackle in the steading.... I'm not sure how he disposed of all the waste!

I pay the price as I don't have an option, and eat the meat with the knowledge that it hasn't been ill treated, poorly fed and travelled hundreds of miles to meet it's maker. You can make your own bacon fairly easily and sausages too - anything by Maynard Davis will give you lots of ideas.

Here's some bacon I made with the last but one pigs we sent away.

[Mel Rice]

The pork just over the border in Poland is VERY cheap and not a bad taste (all comercial indoor I suspect) It does make the economics of keeping a few animals questionable, even if the taste and the knowledge of provenance is much better with local /home produced .
Luckily local, and Polish, Lamb is expensive and the food/slaughter costs not too bad so my two girls do us proud.

[nikks14]

Hi Max, where did you get the hunters kit from, I dont seem to be able to find one?

[Dan]

Hi Max, where did you get the hunters kit from, I dont seem to be able to find one?

You may be better sending MAK a private message, this thread was from 2012 and I know he's not on the forum as often as he used to be.

HTH.

[Buffy the eggs layer]

I think the fat thing is fine if its the appropriate amount of fat for the breed. A lard pig will lay down fat as it grows which was once it's virtue. You either accept the fat and its flavour to add moisture and succulence to the meat or you trim it off and use it for its intended purpose or dispose of it.


I dont know what breed you finished but if you feel that the fat layer on your finished pigs is excessive even for a lard pig then perhaps you have wasted a little in over feeding with concentrates. But with Sow nuts at £6.38 a bag then that what...? £25?


Butchery is a skill and as long as you are happy with the job that they did for you then the price is acceptable and the premises and equipment that they use comes at a cost. If you wanted to go out and buy the exact equivalent of what you have in the freezer in terms of tractability, carbon foot print, welfare and quality, you couldn't buy it for the price that it has cost you. In fact you probably just couldn't buy it regardless of what you were prepared to pay.


The meat will be beautiful and I hope that you can share it with your friends and convince them to invest in buying some of your high welfare, quality pork next year. Add a little on your price to charge a for your time and your share of the pork will be free.

[pharnorth]

Just got mine back from the butcher. Yes my kill cut and butcher costs were even more, but did have a lot of sausages.  Also plenty of fat- that is what gives it flavour!  The costs are high but good abbatoirs/ butchers have a lot of legislation and costs too not least of having a vet in attendance and an abbatoir that will only handle 20 pigs a day.