[Ladygrey]

Oh dear!
Worried now as to what the kune piglets for hog roast will come back looking like 

I sent six away a couple of weeks ago and they came back as smooth as a baby's bum. And oh!!! the taste

Great hopefully my abattoir does the same job!

[Bumblebear]

My aging and failing memory is rattling around telling me there's something about using boiling water to soften bristles which is essential on hairy pigs....  Karen will know, I think, but is busy at the Winter Fair today.

I think I remember a conversation about an older, larger pig and an abbatoir that couldn't boil / scrape the hair on a pig that large so whoever it was had to find another abattoir for pigs over a certain weight....  Anyone else recall something along those lines?

I'm sure they must scald them because they told me I could collect them when they had cooled down, which would have been after 24 hours.... :\  But will def look for another abbatoir anyway.  Especially now I've complained!
That would be an interesting thread to find <goes to look>.  Not really applicable to me though cos mine were deadweight 60kg and 54kg - small by your guys standards I reckon

Sorry, didn't explain myself well.  The relevance being that there is a process they have to do with hairy pigs and I think not all abattoirs do it?  So is worth checking with your abattoir how they dehair, and if it's not scalding, find one that does do hairy pigs properly.

[SallyintNorth]

I'm sure they must scald them because they told me I could collect them when they had cooled down, which would have been after 24 hours....

Nah, the cooling down relates to rapid chilling the meat.  All slaughtered animals are rapid chilled at the abattoir, takes about 24 hours for a porker.

[Tudful Tamworths]

I'd be disappointed if mine came back with that much hair on. You might be able to tolerate it, if you were just rearing pigs for yourself, but if selling to others, you have to think about presentation.
 
I was given a Berkshire joint by a friend and it was so hairy I couldn't bear to cook it with the skin on! Hope you can find a better abattoir. Pretty hard to find in this area, so I'm lucky there's a really good one just 10 minutes away.

[Berkshire Boy]

I don't think there is any need to knock the Berkshire it is bad practice at the abattoir not the fault of the breed.

[kja]

 

I don't think there is any need to knock the Berkshire it is bad practice at the abattoir not the fault of the breed.

  your right BB coloured hairs on joints also come in different breeds we have had ginger hairs from the tamworths & OSB's black hairs from the saddlebacks, hampshire &  GOS to name but a few whilst this seems a little excessive you will always get the odd hair but it soon cooks out.

i for one have used this particular slaughter house for many pigs and never had any back that hairy not even the KK's (they were black & ginger)

[Tudful Tamworths]

I wasn't knocking Berkshires - just saying that even I (as a pig breeder) found it off-putting! The abattoir that produced the joint was one I had tried in the past and had been disappointed with, from the point of butchery.
Just to reiterate - I wasn't blaming the breed!