Author Topic: Slaughter weights:  (Read 684 times)

Shropshirelass

  • Joined Jul 2012
  • South Shropshire
  • A country lass who loves it all!
Slaughter weights:
« on: January 06, 2025, 11:54:53 am »
Out of curiosity with the traditional breeds what sort of weights do people tend to run them to prior to slaughter? As we're looking into getting some in the future but I'm looking into buying some sheep weighing scales at present & I'd rather buy something big enough for both rather than spend money twice & I know there's a big difference in the sizes depending on what you're sending them for & things like youngstock & a big sow for example, but do you guys tend to bother weighing cull sows?

ZacB

  • Joined Apr 2012
  • Suffolk
Re: Slaughter weights:
« Reply #1 on: January 07, 2025, 06:17:47 am »
Pig weigh tapes are pretty accurate & considerably cheaper

Shropshirelass

  • Joined Jul 2012
  • South Shropshire
  • A country lass who loves it all!
Re: Slaughter weights:
« Reply #2 on: January 07, 2025, 11:17:13 am »
That's a fair comment but if I'm sorting a load of animals in batches this ways probably easier & quicker, plus if I need to do anything else with them their somewhat restrained & I wouldn't trust a pig to not turn round & bite you.

SallyintNorth

  • Joined Feb 2011
  • Cornwall
  • Rarely short of an opinion but I mean well
    • Trelay Cohousing Community
Re: Slaughter weights:
« Reply #3 on: January 07, 2025, 06:35:21 pm »
Min 60kgs for a porker, 80-100kgs for a baconer if we can get them that big in the time we have available. (No indoor housing, and ours is not a nice farm for outdoor pigs in winter.)  Some abattoirs will have an upper limit they can take, so check that. 

Sheep weigh scales usually too flimsy, especially for baconers, but pig weigh scales will do both :).
Don't listen to the money men - they know the price of everything and the value of nothing

Live in a cohousing community with small farm for our own use.  Dairy cows (rearing their own calves for beef), pigs, sheep for meat and fleece, ducks and hens for eggs, veg and fruit growing

FOLgate Produce

  • Joined Jan 2025
Re: Slaughter weights:
« Reply #4 on: January 14, 2025, 09:17:47 am »
I am finding that with rare breed pigs they get so fat keeping longer than 6 months is counter productive as they just get fatter and fatter and hardly put on meat at the same rate. So regardless of weight those pigs go in on time.
Anything it seems crossed with a commercial does so much better whilst retaining the rare breed taste most of the time and they get meat weight on much better quicker too meaning that even if we let go past 6 months they do just put on fat.  So I guess our rare breeds probably go in around 70 to 80kgs and our crosses more like 100 to 110kg live weight.

 

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