[Beewyched]

Who said Kunes weren't worth taking to the abbatoir 

We picked-up our 2 from Wishaw today - wow the castrate produced 80.4kg of meat  Chops are between 6x4 & 8x6 inches with 1/2 inch of rind - my OH has just had a couple of them & said they were THE BEST EVER  . The tiny boar produced 24.8kg - so not too bad for one who had to go early.
 
The meat is proper red too - not the awful pale, flacid, full of who knows what, produced in low welfare conditions & travelled across the channel!  It's such a good feeling to know what's on your plate has had a good life.

 

[SallyintNorth]

Sounds fabulous.   

[Hilarysmum]

That is the problem with pigs, you start with piglets, and a small freezer, they grow you shove them in the new larger freezer, then you get into breeding, and require more freezers, then its charcuterie and you need a bigger fridge, and so it goes on.      HM owner of 3 fridges and 5 freezers at the last count, I swear they are breeding.

[littlemisspiggy!]

know the feeling!!!lol...we had to send our boar for slaughter due to him not having good confirmation once grown so out butcher said sausages were the way to go! we had him made into lincolnshire sausages and OMG...... 1566 sausages !! my fridge is full,freezer full! just picked up another fridge freezer from a family member to use aswell....had a BBQ for friends last night,gave a load to family and friends and they in turn bought some more after sampling them on the BBQ!!so if anyone out there in notts area wants some sausages????give me a bell....we are selling 8 for £3 or 30 for £10........al made by award winning butcher...

[Beewyched]

That is the problem with pigs, you start with piglets, and a small freezer, they grow you shove them in the new larger freezer, then you get into breeding, and require more freezers, then its charcuterie and you need a bigger fridge, and so it goes on.      HM owner of 3 fridges and 5 freezers at the last count, I swear they are breeding.

 Is that the piggies or the freezers HM 

[welshlass181]

We had to slaughter ours a bit early as we'd taken on a few to many.  Our biggest female ended up as 31kg of boned/skinned meat.  We'll be taking more in a few months when they're a bit bigger and have more body mass on them. 

I agree that Kunes are good for meat and reasonably small lol

[Beewyched]

We had to slaughter ours a bit early as we'd taken on a few to many.  Our biggest female ended up as 31kg of boned/skinned meat.  We'll be taking more in a few months when they're a bit bigger and have more body mass on them. 

I agree that Kunes are good for meat and reasonably small lol

I would definately say that Kunes take a good 8-10 months to reach a decent kill weight, a fair bit slower than most breeds.  But taking into account the much lower feed costs they probably work-out at a similar production cost to the native breeds.  If the the meat's for Christmas, litters could be timed for early in the year, so they're weaned as the weather/grass is picking-up, they'll have the summer to graze, with little hard feed - just up it a bit in the Autumn to keep the weight on & the fat down.  Alternatively, late Summer litters for the BBQ season - just a few handfuls of feed a day on grazing for the last few months.  The pork is very much like the old traditional meat, with plenty of crackling 

If you add-in the docile natures, ease of handling & their hardiness - they make ideal free-rangers.  Plus the cutesy factor's thrown-in for free! (though I suppose that may be a draw-back for some  )

 

[welshlass181]

Yes i fully agree.  The next lot we take will be a lot bigger and would have had longer to mature.  We had 3 boars there that were taking up a pen that we needed so we just added 3 gilts to the slaughter order (abattoir not local) to make the numbers up if that makes sense.  It's over 120miles to take them down and pick up the meat at the end of it so we have to now weigh up the ends and means.  We've got 12 more to slaughter but we're going to wait a goof few weeks before they go down