The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Pigs => Topic started by: Cjnewton82 on June 16, 2013, 08:59:09 pm
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Hello there first time pig keeper here my pig go to the big farm in the sky on the 19aug and i have a equey for half a pig bucherd what should I charge?? im selling a whole pig for 220 not bucherd and 115 for half a pig not bucherd
thanks again for all you help
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My butcher charges £70 per pig for kill and butcher. HTH.
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Fab that's around what I was thinking.
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just a quick question is the price above with or without sausages??
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If you've got an option of abattoirs & butchers I'd recommend that you give them a call with your specific needs before deciding on where to take your pigs.
We got "caught-out" last year - we went to a different abattoir (on a local butchers suggestion), got the gilt booked-in at £28 kill costs, then when we took her they told us the price had "just gone up" to £40 something :o - as the timing was so tight (just before Christmas) we had to go ahead with it, as it was for family & friends orders ::)
£70 for kill & butchery is a decent cost :thumbsup: (works out roughly £1 - £1.25 per kilo with my wee guys :eyelashes: )
:love: :pig: :love:
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The £70 includes making sausages, yes.
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Crikey £70 :o Mind you if you get sausages included not quite so bad, how much is made into sausages?
I pay £35 kill and cut on normal sized porkers! For kill only it's £20, get the animals back in two halves or for hog roasts etc. I've paid by the kilo for slaughter only on larger animals.
They do charge more for extra butchery like boned/rolled shoulder was £10 per joint, bit much considering they work so quickly! Also sausages are £2.20 per kilo for them to make, but they are really good and I don't have time to make my own - took three of us about a day to make a batch, took the same amount of meat to the abattoir butcher and it was done in half an hour!!!
I then sell the pork at £5 per kilo either as joints or in half pig boxes - abattoir puts the weight on the box for me so easy to work out! Bacon and sausages aren't included in the boxes, I have tended to send a whole pig in for sausages, esp older girls, make very tasty sausages and lots of em, so I've been selling them separately.
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£70 is all in, includes any reasonable butchering, packing and labelling. For a porker, I usually have bellies boned and rolled, half my shoulders ditto with some of the meat removed to add to the sausage pile, half the legs boned and rolled the others jointed bone in, some of the loin cured as bacon, some as chops; tenderloin as tenderloin; joint sizes varying from 1.25kg to just a few at 2.5+kg. If I want the sausagemeat as sausages, that's included, but I usually have some at least left as sausagemeat for me to use in stuffings, meatballs, burgers, etc.
This is our local butcher, he buys most of his lamb from us in the months in which we can produce lambs to his specifications, and he pays a very fair price for them. I therefore am very happy to pay him a fair price for his services and products. ;)
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Well in that case, it's very good value. The basic costs are quite deceiving actually, and you need to factor in all the packing, butchering etc. My abattoir does do it but it's all extras so I got a surprise first time I wanted some joints boned and rolled. I've tended to do the packing myself but it's a faff and after trying to make sausages myself recently and taking all day at it, I think it's all best left to the professionals!
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I just spoke to one butcher that i wont be using that wonted £75 per pig!!!!! for just a basic buther and then wonted another 3.25 per kg of sausages
what type of packing does you meat come back in should i expect freezer bags or proper packaging and labels like a supermarket?? this is because i would like to fell my from a farmers market so that makes how the product looks very important
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If you are selling the meat on at a farmers' market then additional rules will apply, I think, and your butcher may need to charge you more - anyone else know more about this?
If you want it in trays, displayed nicely, then I would think you will certainly have to pay more for that.
My pork, for home use, comes from the butcher in poly bags, sealed, with the butcher's label on, showing the cut, the weight and the date. If I have sausages, they come in long links for me to bag myself - it's Cumberland sausage, so that's how it's done around here, you buy it by the foot! :D. If I have them cure bacon for me, I can have it back as a side, or they will slice it for me if I ask them to; I then bag it up myself in whatever pack sizes I want.
I do know places I can get the pigs butchered more cheaply; the cutting will be just as good but I don't think I'd be able to have trimmed and rolled joints, possibly would have to pay more for any boning, and I'd get back a load of joints in a box, for me to identify, weigh, bag and label. (And trim and roll, if rolled joints are required.) And bacon curing would not be included.
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Exactly Sally - for my mere £35 I get a box of unidentified joints squished in a box which I then have to sort out! Not bad if it's one pig but last Xmas had 5, I didn't label the joints but on the plus side I am now very good at identifying random packs of meat at the bottom of the freezer!
If people are having half pig boxes fresh I leave the sorting up to them. Same with sausages, I get a bin bag sized amount to sort through and repack myself but my kitchen is signed off for all this.
If I wanted anything vac packed it was going to be 40p per pouch, not sure what sizes available, but if it was a kilo, or half kilo packs even that was just too much profit eaten up .
There are strict rules regarding labelling which your local Trading Standards office will be able to advise you on, it's maybe different for farmers markets than my farm gate sales? I was told the weight of food in a pack must be displayed as well as the price per kilo and the pack price, and you'll need to use government approved scales with labels and correctly calibrated to do this. These ain't cheap! Try and find someone else's you can use to start with if you do it yourself.
Also interestingly if I had made our sausages the labelling requirement was much less eg pork %, rusk, water, seasoning. If the abattoir butcher makes them I have to provide a full ingredient list. Also note what type of casings are used.
Luckily near my abattoir is a proper butchers supplier that sells to the public - I go there for my packaging, freezer bags, the little machine that seals the bags etc. I don't agree with overpacking food, I get very cross with all the waste it generates, so I haven't used plastic trays although I agree they make the product more presentable and recyclable versions are out there.
Maybe you could source what you want online and give them to the butcher? It will cost more to have them do it for you but unless you're set up to do the packing and processing it really is worth having someone else to do it at least while you're starting up. You've got enough to worry about in doing the markets without stressing about the produce you'll be bringing!
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Oh, and I've just read elsewhere that nutritional advice on each ingredient will be needed on labels soon - deep joy!