The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Pigs => Topic started by: Jonny99 on October 27, 2020, 11:41:35 am
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Hi everyone. We recently had a couple of tamworth gilts butchered locally and divied up the spoils between friends. One of said friends' dad is a retired butcher, who is convinced that the cuts of meat are from different pigs and that the butcher has swapped out some of meat! Has anyone else had this issue and does anyone have any advice. These are our first pigs and so I'm pretty green!! Many thanks
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That is a hard thing to prove. What exactly made your friends Dad say that?
Obviously next time don't use the same butcher if you don't trust them.
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Hi Harmony
Something about the amount of fat, colour of the meat and the way the fat was layered in different joints! Like you say, very difficult to prove. The butcher is pretty disorganised, but I don't think dishonest ...
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The last pig I sent in was a boar. My butcher knew that. When I collected the meat he said he knew it was a boar because the bones were harder. We didn't discuss it but I will have a conversation next time. It was a well grown pig (over 100 kg lw) so I would have expected it to take more effort to get through the bone anyway.
I'm not disagreeing with your butcher friends comments but has he actually butchered Tamworths? Butchered outdoor reared pork? All breeds are actually different and compared to indoor reared, commercial pork sent off at 16 weeks very different.
All really interesting though. Are you enjoying your own pork?
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Yes. There's an abattoir near me where I have heard a couple of reports of people not getting their own meat back. With coloured pigs you can usually tell as you can still see traces of the black hair. Don't know if the ginger of a Tamworth can be distinguished from more common white pigs?
There's also another abattoir that I use where it is known that you don't get all your meat back. I certainly know that I always get less back than I expect, but don't know enough about the carcass to know what's missing. However - they are still my butcher of choice because they are a quarter the price of the first mentioned, they are lovely people to deal with, and the meat comes back all bagged up.
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It happens all the time, which is why people often stick to using a good abbattoir when they find one! I found the bigger and more commercial the worse they are. You send a pig in and get a pig out, smaller places value you more as a customer I think.
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Yes. There's an abattoir near me where I have heard a couple of reports of people not getting their own meat back. With coloured pigs you can usually tell as you can still see traces of the black hair. Don't know if the ginger of a Tamworth can be distinguished from more common white pigs?
There's also another abattoir that I use where it is known that you don't get all your meat back. I certainly know that I always get less back than I expect, but don't know enough about the carcass to know what's missing. However - they are still my butcher of choice because they are a quarter the price of the first mentioned, they are lovely people to deal with, and the meat comes back all bagged up.
Yes, you might find the odd ginger hair like you can find the odd black one but you shouldn't really have to hunt round for hairs to prove you got your pig back.
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we allways slap mark our pig twice once each side ,so when we pick them up from slaughter house we know that we gat ours back
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we allways slap mark our pig twice once each side ,so when we pick them up from slaughter house we know that we gat ours back
I know some people slap both shoulders and both hams.
Of course slapping proves it is your pig carcase but it doesn't stop a butcher mixing up or swapping those bits without the slap mark on further down the process. Most people don't see their carcase between dropping off for slaughter and collection of their meat.
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The last pig I sent in was a boar. My butcher knew that. When I collected the meat he said he knew it was a boar because the bones were harder. We didn't discuss it but I will have a conversation next time. It was a well grown pig (over 100 kg lw) so I would have expected it to take more effort to get through the bone anyway.
I'm not disagreeing with your butcher friends comments but has he actually butchered Tamworths? Butchered outdoor reared pork? All breeds are actually different and compared to indoor reared, commercial pork sent off at 16 weeks very different.
All really interesting though. Are you enjoying your own pork?
Very much so, the sausages are great :)
Sounds like it can be a bit of lottery, we did find both black and ginger hairs, although this could have cross 'contamination'!
The search continues :D