The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Pigs => Topic started by: TRUFFLE on March 21, 2011, 05:45:19 pm
-
Having had commercial type pigs for the last 2 years (duroc x), we are thinking of trying a rare breed for a change. We would like something with a friendly, docile temperament, but which tastes great at the end (sorry to all of you who don't eat yours!!) Not over keen on massive amounts of fat either - this has always put us off something like the GOS, as we've been told they are very fatty (but maybe that's where all the taste comes from??) We are confused and need a bit of advice from those in the rare breed know!! Thanks, Clare ???
-
truffle you don't say what the other bit of your cross was
going by your post it is only the Hampshire or British lop that you will be interested in
now all the G O S breeders will be on here telling you that the gos is by taste the best and every other breed will be championing theres
middle white x with gos gives 10mm of backfat (fed properly) :pig: :pig: :wave:
-
I have had Tamworths, Iron ages and some that where crossed so many times that there paremtage was very questionable!!
My first Tamworths tasted great but where a bit on the fatty side. The Iron ages had a very strong taste and I know have a couple in the field along with some yet untasted GOS.
The first crosses where disappointing, so the rest became bacon, sausage and gammon.
Mine where fed on Sow and weaner nuts through out and free range in a large paddock eating there way through the field. Once you have had ypur own pork you will never want to go back.
Consider pig keeping as a adventure....it really doesnt matter what you have as next time you can try something else.
The key is not to over feed, yes, fat improves the flavour, but you dont want more fat than meat.
-
Thanks for those replies -I never knew what the Durocs were crossed with!! Tasted OK though, and got loads of meat from them with not too much fat. However, we really do want to be more adventurous now, so welcoming these suggestions. Have never heard of Iron Agers?!!! Where do you get them from?
-
Oxford Sandy and Blacks make great meat they are also very docile hardy and don't put on much fat even when fed very well.
-
"Iron Age" are wild boar crossed with Tamworth. A bit bony in my experience.
Try different types of pork from farmers' markets if you can. And don't forget that a meat pig isn't for life, just for four months (if a traditional breed), so you can afford to experiment.
-
Since when was a Hampshire ever a rare breed?
-
My first choice would be Middlewhite, and then Berkshire. The Berkshires have more character, but the Middlewhite taste better IMO. I did have a White Welsh Cross of some description once, which was good too. Am I right in thinking these have an extra rib - all you pig experts out there. ;D
I found the Iron Age type pigs too clever, and the pork was not all that porky, a bit more like wild boar. I like my meat to taste as I expect it should ie I want a duck not a Barbary Duck. I found the GOS was too fatty, and the Tamworth not all that tender, but I bet it would have made lovely bacon.
All the best
Sue
-
GOS is my favourite. Fed well they are not fatty and the taste is sublime.
-
As Julie S says GOS fed properly are not fatty. If they are too fat for your taste ask the butcher to cut off the fat and to put the skin back on for the joints.
I think I would be hard pressed to find better tasting pork than a properly fed GOS although tamworth is also gorgeous. Mangalitsa is also superb. Actually all rare breeds taste pretty great, I suspect you need to try them all and find the one most suited to your taste.
-
did anyone watch last weeks british food revivals ? last week it was potatoes and pork, very informative explaining why fat is needed to get the best flavour.
that said we have had tamworths, british lops, saddlebacks, oxford sandy and blacks, GOS and hampshire (not rare breed i know )
the lops and osb both make great pork and bacon and are top of the pile for us and our customers.
-
Old Spots are delicious.
Yum Yum Yum.
-
I found the Iron Age type pigs too clever, and the pork was not all that porky, a bit more like wild boar. I like my meat to taste as I expect it should ie I want a duck not a Barbary Duck. I found the GOS was too fatty, and the Tamworth not all that tender, but I bet it would have made lovely bacon.
This is the problem with such a question.......everybody has different tastes.....so it really is a minefield.
Iron Age is not a docile breed, they are very alert. My GOS are very docile and laid back. But again not everyone wants docile pigs!! I have been over the moon with all the bacon and sausages whatever they have come from!!!
-
Thanks so much for all your replies! Yes, it is a minefield, and I loved the comment that said a meat pig is just for 4 months, not for life, so get experimenting!! Made me giggle :wave: Don't necessarily have to have rare breed I guess, just something a bit more interesting than what I would term "supermarket pork" (so Hampshires may fit the bill) but I do quite like the sound of the lops. I think I'll just have to see what is available out there at the moment. We have only ever paid about £30 for our weaners, which I think seems very cheap having had a quick look at what is available, BUT (and I can hear you typing it already) I'm sure you just get what you pay for!! :pig:
-
No contest GOS ;D Not that i'm biased or anything.
Mandy :pig:
-
interesting comments from all posters
iron age is only a descriptive term for wild boar crosses (so you do not need a dangerous animal licence) that was the first pigs we had
hampshire a rare breed? at the last count there were only 13 registered breeders in the UK probably Mr pig will question this as well never mind truffle was willing to try them???? :wave:
-
This post is not going to help you at all, but please read on anyway ;) We buy weaners and fatten them. To date we have had Saddlebacks, OSB, Tamworth, Large Black x Middle white, GOS, Middle White, Pietrain x Saddleback and Berkshires. Guess what ? I'm none the wiser ! There are so many variables before anything ends up on your plate. Two batches of the same breed can be very different because they come from different parents. Some are fattened mainly during summer, others winter so what they root up varies. What about the butcher ? His cure for the ham and bacon may vary or he may leave it in the cure for a day longer or shorter. Bottom line ? It's pretty much all delicious ;D Now we buy weaners based on their availability, price and nearness to home. That said I'd still love to try some breeds we haven't had just for the sake of it. Lops being top of the list. As I said, not very helpful, but good luck and enjoy.
-
Has nobody tried Kune Kunes? They are a "smallholder" pig afterall. Has this "micro pig" fashion thing ::) put peops off giving them a good life & a useful end or do they think they're too cute & rather give them a miserable like stuck in a flat all day with a spiteful cat for company >:( >:( >:(
Sorry folks, I know all of us KK peops on here love our KKs & I don't hate cats either ;D just starting to rant ...
-
happy hippy will be along to support the kune kunes
we had them we sold them on not a fan even if they were fed wrong :wave: :wave:
-
Fed wrong? I'm intrigued ???
-
sow rolls barley and potatoes well we had 125 pigs at the time try feeding that lot on sow rolls alone ::) ::) :wave:
-
LW - pleased to oblige on the only bit I understood. Hampshires are an American commercial breed and are widespread (literally thousands of pedigree registered) in the US, Canada and a number of south American countries. Don't take my word for it - check on its status within the international FanGR registry.
-
but we are not in the us Canada or south America it is the UK
now tamworths are in Australia and other country's as are saddelbacks BUT THEY ARE STILL REGARDED AS RARE BREEDS
the bpa website tells the story that it is of British origin :wave:
-
OMG! What have I started?? :o Quite a debate going on, but is making great reading, so THANKYOU to all who have replied. Squinky, just out of pecuniary interest, what do you normally pay for your weaners?
-
Lilian/Mr Pig, you have made me think too. I know mangalitsas are very close the the lincolnshire curly coat but they are not the same. They have been imported to UK from Austria and yet are considered to be eligible for registration on the British Pig Association herd book.
How can this be? (Not having a rant a genuine question from the mentally confused) ......
-
Yes HM, you've got me thinking too ::) ;D
Kune Kune's aren't in the BPA's remit as they're not a native breed (so I was told, but maybe that's not the only reason ???) so why would Mangalitza's or reintroduced Hamphires count ? I think there's a bit of height descrimination going on somewhere ;) ;D ;D ;D
I'm not going into the whole KK for meat speil again (thank god I hear you all say ;)) if anyone wants to hear it have a look here http://www.accidentalsmallholder.net/forum/index.php?topic=12829.0 (http://www.accidentalsmallholder.net/forum/index.php?topic=12829.0)
Karen x
-
OK - response to various points. Populations of pedigree Tamworths in US and Canada are minute and make no difference to the world population of TWs which is rare. The Saddleback populations in Australia and USA are even smaller and again make no difference to the world population of the breed. Hampshires however are widespread throughout the Americas and are thus not endangered. The fact that there is a small population here (but much larger than TW and BS populations overseas) is thus irrelevant to the overall situation. To extrapolate your logic further, i.e. because there aren't many of these American pigs here in the UK they must be rare, do you consider because there are hardly any Large Whites in Scotland that they too must be rare?
Just because something appears on the BPA website doesn't make it true.
Mangalitzas. There is no truth in the assertions by some that Mangalitzas are related to Lincolnshire Curly Coats. It is a story concocted by those who imported them to make their stocks saleable to others in the UK. Yes, a small number of LCCs were exported to eastern Europe in the 1950s - too few to have made any difference wahtsoever. Further, no one can point to a single pedigree and show any direct lineage to a single LCC. Managalitzas are widespread throughout Poland, Hungary, Austria, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Albania etc. and again the world population is enormous. Mangalitzas had a curly coat even before LCCs were exported and the only relationship between them is that they share a rogue gene that causes the woolly appearance. BPA are a commercial organisation and open their business to any foreign breed that happens to be imported to the UK if so requested. Kune Kunes decided to do their own pedigree recording. I attach a photo of Mangalitzas from the beginning of the 20th c.
-
i like foreign food!! ;D ;D ;D ;)
my mangalitza tastes great...but we did also send 3 kk's at the same time and they taste fab too ;D ;D ;D
;) love this site ;)
-
well then mr pig you forgot about the tw in oz and also that hampshires originated from the uk
just because you say something is irrelevant has no more creadance than search engine generated print
so whare does the red hereford pig come into this (will nead to get on the bandwagon with this one) just to jack of a few breeders
-
LW - Again the Australian population of TWs is very small and doesn't affect the breed's worldwide status as recorded by the UN in the FanGR listings.
The Hereford pig has never set foot in the UK let alone Herefordshire. It was named in the States where it was developed because it had similar markings to Hereford cattle, ie brown with a white face.
Hampshires were indeed derived from pigs originally sent out - probably from Scotland - in the 1820s. They were shipped via Southampton which is why the Americans chose to call them 'Hampshires'. The colour and shape has changed significantly over the years as the Americans have 'improved' the type by crossing them with other breeds. The modern Hampshire barely meets the description 'breed' as - as I am sure you can attest - relatively few pedigree piglets born meet the breed standard in terms of colour, markings etc which may be a reason why they have lacked popular appeal in the UK as a pedigree breed.
-
Oooo Mr Pig - those are some HUGE hairy pigs ;) ;D ;D ;D
I always thought the Hampshire's were exported from the UK to elsewhere, and when the breed died out in the UK (due to lack of demand) they shipped some back over - maybe I got that wrong ??? But I don't think anyone said they were classed as a 'rare breed' (they're not on the RBST list) just that they are rare in the UK.
Lillian - behave ! ;D
(http://smileys.on-my-web.com/repository/Winks/ok-wink.gif)
-
you are talking shite we have hampshires and the litter we have (10) are perfect examples and one has 16 nipples (saddelback breeders are registering 15 nippled gilts in the hope of getting a 16 )
so that will be them comming back to scotland then :pig: :pig: :pig: :wave:
-
Mr Pig thank you for the explanation.
-
The Hampshire Breed has been developed in the United States of America and is now one of the World’s most important breeds.
In some respects the Hampshire can be regarded as a ‘British Native’ Breed, as the original breeding stock was imported from Wessex, UK in 1832, the date being recorded in the “Hampshire Blue Book” published in 1928. The book records the complete history of the breed and its origin.
From the time of its arrival in the USA until 1890 the breed was called “The Thin Rind” breed, due to the abundance of lean meat it produced.
At a meeting of American breeders in 1890 the breed was renamed the Hampshire, as the original pigs were imported from a farm in Hampshire, Wessex, UK. A Breed Society was established at the same time and herd book recording can be traced for more than 100 years.
The Hampshire is used extensively as the sire of cross bred pigs for the pork and manufacturing markets in the USA and many other countries. It has the reputation of being the leanest of the North American Breeds and the majority of carcase competitions in North America are won by Hampshires and Hampshire crosses.
The first Hampshires in the UK were imported from the USA in 1968 by the ‘Animal Breeding Research Organisation (ABRO). The import was a ‘random sample’ of the breed. The pigs were extensively performance tested prior to being released to British breeders.
The next major importation was in 1973 when 40 pigs from many different USA bloodlines were imported from Canada (import restrictions prohibiting direct imports from the USA at that time). This importation was very carefully selected and included a boar that was grand champion at the 1972 Toronto Royal Show. This same boar was breed champion at the English Royal Show in 1975.
British Hampshires very soon became popular worldwide and in a twelve month period August 1978 to August 1979 more than 600 head were exported to 14 different countries.
The British Hampshire, both pure bred and crosses, have won many interbreed championships at the Royal Smithfield Show, London for carcases and live pigs.
During the 1980s and 1990s several new blood lines have been imported from the USA by embryo transfer and boar semen.
In the world of commercial pig production there is certainly a place for the Hampshire, still regarded by many as the best terminal sire breed for all purposes.
-
;)thats word for word what we read when deciding on hampshire weaners too, the BPA have a good write up on all breeds.
-
LW - I have in front of me The Blue Book of the Hampshire Breed 1920 which includes Vol 1 of the herd book for the breed. This is the same volume that the BPA claims to have derived the history from. I quote from the first major article therein 'Origin of the Hampshire Hog': "It was very fortunate for the American farmer that the exportations from England to America in 1825 up to and including 1935, were the pure 'Old English Breed' of Scotland, and North England, making their way to America through Hampshire, England, and hence their name."
There is a great deal more written purporting to be the history of the breed but some of the 'facts' are at least challengeable. Like many from the era, the author presumes that because two pigs have 'similar markings' they are related and he quotes extensively from David Low's "Breeds of domestic Animals of the British Isles". He latches on to The Old English breed illustrated therein which is not a Saddleback but a belted animal with white ears. Like many who have written histories of breeds, the author, Mr E C Stone presumes to know what went on 85-95 years before his essay and at best it is speculative. As with nearly all breeds therefore, there is a degree of shall we say 'wishful thinking' included which we should treat with caution before quoting it too readily as fact. What is certain is that the pigs illustrated from the 1920 volume look very different from today's Hampshire indicating that something radical has occured in the intervening 91 years.
Whilst I cited the modern Hampshire's difficulty in breeding true for colour, you countered by talking about nipples! Sixteen teats (or even more) is indeed something to aspire to but I don't understand your implied criticism of Saddleback breeders accepting 15 as desirable. The breed standard for BS calls for a minimum of 12 and 13 is better than 12, and 15 is better than 14. There's nothing wrong with an uneven number. The standard demands 'evenly spaced' but that doesn't necessitate even numbers of working teats as any worthwhile judge will tell you.
So can we move on now please?
Hampshires aren't rare.
Herefords are an American breed that have never been in the UK.
Tamworths worldwide are rare as are British Saddlebacks (according to the UN).
Mangalitzas are unrelated to Lincolnshire Curly Coats are are not rare.
QED.
-
We're getting off the subject here folks - what about the taste ??? :love: :pig: :yum: :wave:
-
it is interesting that you refer to old books then rubbish the contents
the pure old English breed of Scotland exported in 1825 (just at the agricultural revolution ) less than a hundred years after the Jacobite uprising it could not have been written by anybody of Scots decent or was it?
with any breed the underline is important (would a 3 breasted woman win miss world if they were evenly spaced?)
i DID not criticise the saddelback breeders just pointing this out
do you currently breed and own Hampshire's?
are you a recognised BPA judge(there is a reason in asking)
can we move on now well the original poster had tried duroc x i merely suggested Hampshire's or British lops the lop is a rare breed much forgotten about and the Hampshire along with the duroc and mangalitsa are classified as modern
THE TASTE it depends on what breed you have a foot in there camp the method of cooking the time it is hung the process it goes through the age at slaughter how and what it was fed on etc etc
will the hereford pig be imported even if just for the cutessie factor? :wave: :wave:
QRM
-
I am not a Miss World judge but I suspect that the criteria for assessing the winner is not her ability to feed multiple births of piglets but I might be wrong.
-
We're getting off the subject here folks - what about the taste ??? :love: :pig: :yum: :wave:
I still vote for GOS but ANY pig reared free range, with room to move and stuff to grub out is going to taste delicious. :yum: ;D
-
i would agree HM ;D
-
What brilliant reading! Thanks so much to all who have posted comments. I have read them all and done a bit of extra research and am homing in on either Lops or Oxford Sandy and Blacks. Anyone know of any such weaners in our area - Lincs/Notts/South Yorks borders??
What I think I have learnt above all else, is that the rearing/feeding/butchering appears to be just as important as the breed, so I'm happy about that as I think (I hope!) that we're doing OK on that front. Thanks again my porcine friends! :wave:
-
The best place to find Lops for sale is: http://www.britishloppig.org.uk/noticeboard.asp (http://www.britishloppig.org.uk/noticeboard.asp)