Author Topic: What age for pork ? (Read 13940 times)

Pigtails · « **Reply #15 on:** March 19, 2009, 08:17:07 am »

Until fairly recently, many of our pigs were sold through our guest house with the surplus being sold on.
Now we have a situation whereby, we cannot give away our pigs live, we are having to look at other ways of selling them.
Our location although lovely, does not help.

We are now looking at the possibility of a small on farm processing unit, ultimately our pigs would be taken to the abattoir for slaughter
and returned to our farm for butchering and resale, can anyone advise, have they experience of doing this sort of thing, and has it been successful?

Does anyone know, the legal requirements for such an enterprise?

gavo · « **Reply #16 on:** March 19, 2009, 10:42:19 pm »

Hello,

A lot depends of your local EHS. As we do not have a licensed cutter within 90 miles we have been allowed to use the services of a local butcher. We take the pigs to the abattoir, the abattoir delivers the pigs to the butcher and the butcher then delivers the end product back to us.
We then subsequently sell the frozen product from our farm shop. In terms of outlay the cost thus far has been minimal (under £6K). As we are also selling frozen the rules & regs are also a lot less. At the moment the additional cost of running a cold room, a blast freezer and a fresh meat prep area simply wouldn't be worth it the outlay for the amount of pigs we put into the shop.

Cheers

Gavin

Pigtails · « **Reply #17 on:** March 20, 2009, 10:15:21 am »

Hi Gavo,

This information is very much appreciated and useful to us, we thank you.
Where are you Gavo? in Scotland?

We until fairly recently lived on an island and even in saying that, our problems with marketing were significantly less than those we are
facing now, even though slaughter had to take place some few hundred miles away, which of course, is traumatic for the pig.

Our nearest abattoir is in Wick, at 40 miles away.
Or Dingwall, which is 100 miles away.
Neither will guarentee taking our surplus pigs.

We believe, our situation demands that we sell meat as opposed to live animals.

gavo · « **Reply #18 on:** March 20, 2009, 06:21:38 pm »

Hello,

We live in Northern Ireland on the border (a little place called Belcoo) with Southern Ireland and about 110miles from Belfast. Our nearest abattoir in NI is 100 miles away and they operate a strict 100kg liveweight limit and are only open for deliveries 10am to 4pm Mon-Thurs. As such we export all our pigs to an abattoir in Co. Donegal (in the South) who have no weight limit and you can drop the pigs off 7am to 11pm Mon-Thurs. This incurs an export charge of £40 but this is more than saved in terms of aggro and diesel (it's 16 miles away). The cutting plants in NI just haven't cottoned onto the fact that there are people rearing pigs extensively and in lower numbers so they only deal with the "factory" farmers.

Cheers

Gavin

Hilarysmum · « **Reply #19 on:** March 21, 2009, 08:41:27 am »

"This incurs an export charge of £40 "

Why? I thought UK and Ireland were both in EU. (Genuinely confused)

gavo · « **Reply #20 on:** March 21, 2009, 11:45:17 am »

Hello,

We refer to it as an export charge but it's the cost of the vet certifying them fit for export. There is no charge levied on us by DARD (Ag Dept in NI).

Cheers

Gavin