[garden cottage]

just had our 2 glos old spot x berkshire pigs back from slaughter, weve bitten the bullet and decided to do our own butchery this time. slaughterhouse cost was £45.00 for the 2 pigs each split in two. thank god mum was an ex butcher many moons ago and came to give us a few pointers,also found hugh fern whit & ray butcher dvd very good for beginners. actually thoroughly enjoyed whole experience now got confidence to tackle anything?.   went out and got a cheapy mincer, hand crank job and found it absolutely superb, anns made lots of different sausage meats/burger/ pastie mixes. compared these carcasses to the tamworth and found the berkshire cross to be much leaner meat with less fat. pigs killed out at 78 & 79 kilos  nearly seven months old. hope this is of interest to new piggy people......neil

[Guy]

sounds like a great experience , how long did the process take? how did you cut it up i.e. different cuts etc? how messy was it? we have always thought about giving it a go - would certainly keep costs down

[garden cottage]

other half picked up pigs frid afternoon, then started butcher work at 5.00 soon as i got in from work. we had 3 halfs done joints and chops by about 10.00pm then the last half left till sat morn cutting up finished by 10.00am had a little production line going with me de boning joints chops, ann stringing joints etc. my only worry was the amount of initial meat to process and not having a cold room, so the empty chest freezer we had ready set it on no 1 minimum kept the rest of meat in there, kept it nice and cold until all butcher work was complete. then today sunday has been mincer day all day doing different batched of sausage meats trying different recipes. now all finished.  on a different note not much is mentioned of final cost of rearing killing and initial buying of pigs on here so ours worked out at ---£132.50 per pig thats everything, looked on line at old spot pork and were pleased with that think its well worth doing.....neil

[Guy]

phew , that certainly sounds a big job-albeit very rewarding , i take my hat off to you . i think we will leave it for a few batches before we attempt to try our hand at it. a  lot of research is needed me thinks
thanks for the info

[MrsJ]

Our butchery tally is now 6 pigs and 15 lambs.  My husband did a course with Ray at River Cottage and our local butcher was also very helpful, letting him go along for a morning to help out.  After we did the pigs, the 14 members of the group met up to make sausages - a fun day had by all.