[Baswold]

What is the ideal weight for slaughter if you want good pork not bacon. I have just measured my gilts and they are 95 x 100 cm and I make this around 123 lbs please correct me if Im wrong. I was going to take them in a weeks time would they have put a few pounds on in aweek (is there a formula for knowing how much weight they put on at various ages). Also what pecentage do you actually get when butchered excluding trotters etc.
Thanks
Bas

[kja]

is that live weight your talking ?

if so they are on the light side, we usually work on a 72% ish kill out ratio.

i would be looking at a minimum of 120lb DW but we take ours to about 140 - 150lb of boxed meat this gives a good eyeto the chops

[kja]

what age and breed are they ?

[Baswold]

They will be 24 weeks when I intended taking them in and they are OSB x GOS. I have found when I have taken them to 26/27 weeks they tend to be too fatty. How much do you feed yours in the final couple of months and what age do you slaughter.
Thanks

[Fowgill Farm]

They should be right to go now, an easier way is to measure around their chest behind the front legs if they're 38 inches+ send them, i aim for 40 inches for a porker, 45 inches for a baconer. From one porker i get back 2 boxes inc sausages about 23 - 24 kg each box, i do not do trotters, heads, or anything squeamish but thats me! I measure mine as above 4 wks before their butcher date and gauge food by that, i aim on an inch growth a week so based on what they measure i up or down their food. Sorry its not very scientific but works for me.
Mandy
ps we had the same cross go at 31wks and had an inch & half back fat. Whoops

[kja]

just checked my weigh charts we had our first osb's killed at 24 weeks they killed out boxed meat not dw 120lb - 122lb these were the youngest osb's we took we wanted to check fat level was ok all the others went to 26 weeks.

i make no secret that i am not keen on x traditional breeds as past experience has proved they do tend to take on more fat than pures and i like to keep pure.

as for feeding i feed slightly different to a lot of people we ad lib until 8 weeks then they go on 4lb a day each right through this gives us a good sized evenly grown pig we do the same method for the show pigs too, you may get the odd pig that needs a little extra then its done by eye. anyone that has seen my pigs in the ring may well think they are over fed but thats how i get them there.

you did not say if that was LW or DW

[HappyHippy]

There's a calculation for their weight - measure in meters for this one 

Girth squared x length x 69.3 = weight in Kg

0.95 x 0.95 x 1 = 0.9025 x 69.3 = 62.5Kg (or 65.8 if the measurements are the other way round)

We normally aim for between 70 and 85Kg liveweight for them to go and I reckon on getting about half the liveweight back in joints and cuts.
Deadweight drops to between 70-80% of the liveweight, and weight of cuts is normally 70-80% of the deadweight.

For feed, I'd be tempted to stick somewhere between 4 and 5 lbs per day, if they're lying around inside their arcs and not doing much because of the rotten weather you could stick to the lower amount.
HTH
Karen

[Baswold]

Thanks for the replies very helpful
Bas