The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Pigs => Topic started by: ScotsGirl on November 02, 2012, 07:00:01 pm
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I have 3 OSBs going off in a fortnight. I have asked similar question before but can't find the answer I am looking for.... Those of you that sell perhaps in half or quarter boxes, do you take a set quantity of meat to make sausages so each box has a couple of packs and if so which cuts do you use? I want high meat content.
Second, how much bacon would I get out of a loin or half loin (roughly). Can't decide how much to turn into bacon
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might help if you say what age and weight the pigs are
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Oops, yes sorry someone came in and disturbed me mid-message. They are about 7.5 months old, boars and last measure over 80kg liveweight. Does that help?
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usually with a traditional cut pig the trimmings, hock etc will be made into sausages usually 3-6lb of sausage a side depending on size. we tend to stick to this as we want the pork back as joints etc.
as for bacon depends on how big the loin is as to bacon you get back the longer the pig is in the back the more bacon they produce.
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We have some of the shoulder from our OSBs done as sausages to increase the amount, and generally get about 10lb per pig at weights similar to yours, that's sausages which are minimum 75% meat. I find that I can sell all the sausages and bacon that we produce (and then some), while roasting joints sell less well, so I have had almost all of a carcass sausaged before: seems a waste but that's what sells. When I take orders for 1/2 and 1/4 pigs, I ask the customer how they want it butchered (and if they want the heads, trotters & offal - most don't!) and tend to get most off the loin done as bacon cos that's what people want. Tend to get about 15lb bacon per pig too, give or take. Suggest you go and have a look at the carcasses at the butchers, and ask his advice about quantities. Make sure you specify high proportion of meat in the sausages too.
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Thanks Tiva Diva that is very helpful. Pigs booked in for 19th and hopefully on one quarter to sell which will leave us a whole pig to ourselves!
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Just to agree with Tiva Diva: we find sausages sell very well and we can usually shift the chops but the bigger joints are harder to sell. Our halves this year came back with about 10lb of sausages from trimmings and the worse end of the shoulder.
Our butcher doesn't do bacon so we usually just do the belly as streaky for ourselves. Checking back over previous records of ours, we got about 4kg of belly and 6kg of loin from a 90kg liveweight saddleback which could both be bacon'ed - but that is 'wet weight' and I'm not sure how that translates to final cured weight.