[harry]

anyone sucessfuly home butchered a pig useing you tube instructions... how long did it take, as its £40 to have it butchered and packed

[mariwilliams]

We have kept pigs for the freezer in past years.  We have always done it through the slaughter house/butcher, I would defo recommend this because they know best, with regards to what your meat is good enough for i.e- fat enough for sausages or perhaps burgers would be better. 
With regards to price, it will most definetly depend on how you want the meat cut and packed.  If you'r not botherd the slaughter house will butcher the meat and give it back to you in a 'bag' for you to pack your self (this is the case with lambs).  As we have always done it through a butcher we have paid between £60-90.  FANTASTIC results from someone who you trust :-) 

[harry]

yes i thought £40 each ( i have 7 ) was worth paying all packed and labeled,,, probably take me all day to do one,

[MAK]

We killed then butchered 2 last month. £40 sounds OK but a lot to me as I am mean and we have more time than we do money- plus we want to live the simple rural life.
Go for it - PM me if you want.
It is a lot of work even once killed , hair burnt off and split. It took us 3 days to butcher, bag and label 2 pigs PLUS we made 3 types of sausages, dry cure salami, bacon and hams. We cured the hams and bacon for a few days then carved all and froze.
If you have a good saw, long knife, chopper and paring knife then have a go. I enjoyed doing it and woke early to crack on.
Oh - make sure that you can carry half a pig- get it through any doors and have a good bench/table with chopping board to do the deed.We wrapped ours in shower curtains and hung them overnight in the barn after they had been bled,emptied, split and washed.,
Note that you will have to take the head, liver,kidneys and heart etc after the kill and before you start the butchering. Plan it. and have containers.
 We only made black pudding with the blood, sliced and froze the liver and had the kidneys for dinner.

We looked up a few You tube videos and had a BASIC ( bad) book) - but plan what you want in terms of cuts and joints and have bins for scraps and sausage cuts with another bowl for fat. You may also want to cube, slice some meat for stir fry or casseroles etc
Also - consider Joints - how many and how big do you need. Same for crackling - do you want it or just have sheets of fat.
Keep fat if you want to make lard - we didn't but needed some for sausage.  .

the Trixy bit was the shoulders- read up
 Also think chops or loin roast ( fillet or on the bone).
 My butcher kit cost just a 100 Euros - but a decent saw is essential to do the chops , spare ribs and cut thru the front and hind quarters. Only 5-6 saw cuts per half but you need a good saw.

Also - have you got a good meat mincer. We have a great old Kenwood ( 35 years) that minced the meat for sausage and we bought skins and sausage mix from Weschnerfelder . online. 
   

[princesspiggy]

i butchered our sow who was 176kg dead weight. it was for home use but easy to do, just takes a while. it  teaches u alot so worth the effort to do it at least once.
make the time to understand what joints are what, and how they are to be cooked etc before u start.
we'l be doing the same again shortly but hopefully have a sausage maker and mincer, which will be hilarious!
7 pigs at one time is a big jump tho, cos the pro's are a damn sight quicker (than me anyway - lol)
 

[Tamsaddle]

I find the most tedious thing about home butchering is not the cutting up, but the packaging, vac packing and labelling.   We do all the cutting first, put the joints in the fridge, then the packing, by which time the joints are oozing blood and the vac packing doesn't seal properly, the weights need to be recalculated and the labels re-typed.   All takes very much more time than the actual butchery.

[redborneschoolfarm]

We butchered pigs with students they are quite straightforward, river cottage has a series of good videos but you have to pay for them, might be worth while if you fabcy doing it now and then. We have a simple guide on our blog at http://redbornefarm.blogspot.com it works for us when getting kids to do it.

[HappyHippy]

Here's a link to the Quality Meat Scotland website which has diagrams, descriptions and videos all freely available  (the price us smallholders like best  )
http://www.qmscotland.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=103&Itemid=65
I agree it's not the cutting, but the weighing, labelling and packing that takes the time  Even with both myself and Bruce 'labouring' to our butcher friend when he cut 2 of ours, we were struggling to keep up with him 
Personally, I think it's easier to get the butcher to do it  But definately worth having a go yourself at least once (but not with 7 Harry ! That'd be enough to put you off ever keeping pigs again me thinks  )
Karen 

[harry]

yes ..my time is busy so i think this time its the butchers `job,,,may try later

[MrsJ]

I sent my OH on a HFW course called "A Pig in a Day" - expensive and not really hands on, but it was a good grounding.  He then went to our local butcher who very kindly let him work with his chaps for a day, which was much more useful.

[robert waddell]

a lot of these courses  are just money making schemes for the organizers

[hughesy]

Agree with RW for definite. The whole river cottage thing is a massive money making enterprise which totally screws over it's own principles.

[arl]

Hi Mrs J
Hope it was the river cottage course because ours is very hands on you butcher your own half pig and take it away with you. And robert we dont make a great deal out of it we like to share our experiences with others,
The course is smiffys by the way and you get fed and watered as well.
Arl

[dixie]

I pay £25-£30 depending on cuts etc. why not ask the butcher if you can watch/help, so you can learn? Our butcher did a demonstration for a group of us from our local smallholders group.

[arl]

I do butchery for smallholders and charge £25-£30 depending on size fat ect some take longer to do than others but i do bone and roll the shoulder,take out crop steaks,leg steaks and roll the belly if required. chops ect are in nos required and all is vac packed.I do the odd demo at farmers markets just to give you an idea what is from where and what you should expect back from butchers.
Arl