[Mrs Snoodles]

Yes, an 8 month old OSB would probably be too fatty for the butcher to sell.  I know our abattoir/ butcher isn't really interested in selling most rare breed meats and they often comment on how overly fatty they are.  Just a note to what the others said, unless you kept yours exceptionally lean then you may would have lost extra weight from the fat being stripped down pre sausage prep.   I'm in Suffolk too - did you go to the big place?

[MAK]

Tamsdale - thanks for posting the ratios - I'll see how near I get to these when I home kill and butcher.

[Padge]

I've heard claims of butchers holding back meat for themselves and found it hard to believe   however not something we have ever experienced as have always just butchered ourselves i do hope you're wrong about your butcher
Our last two killed out at 60 and 64 kilos at 6 months pretty much what we expected

[Sylvia]

We have ours just cut up into basic joints plus a bag of trimmings for sausages and do the rest of the cutting ourselves. We can jigsw ours together and see that we always get the right quantity back. Plus, if you slap mark on shoulder and backside you will know the pigs are yours.(and so will the butcher)

[kja]

it is not unknown for butchers to slip the odd bit to one side and its not always to put through their shops they know as well as we all know RB pork has taste it end up on their plates.

a friend of ours once sent off some saddlebacks on their return they were pleased they killed out so well until they looked closer not only had theirs been killed and cut they had their hair dyed too they had someones tammies, i bet the other owners were not so impressed with kill out weights or black hairs.

we used to slap all 4 quaters until one on the back side hit a nerve and sent the pig lame so we are very carful now as to where it lands on the rear.

[sabrina]

As far as we know we got back what we expected but how do you get the liver. never had this from the lambs either.

[Bumblebear]

We didn't get our lamb's liver back until nearly a month after they had gone - and then only after we phoned and asked.  The possibilities of these being our lambs livers?!    Oh well.  They're frozen too so now so I'm not even sure if we can defrost them enough to cut them up and then freeze them again.  We certainly cant eat the lot in one go!

[deepinthewoods]

bow saw....

[hughesy]

If you have your pig butchered and give the butcher a list of what you want, but maybe due to forgetfullness or lack of knowledge don't ask for a particulat item, will you get that part?  For example if you have the leg done for roasting joint and the loin for chops and steaks, what's going to happen to the chump and the fillet?  We always get ours back just split into halves and butcher ourselves but it strikes me that a butcher could easily forget to put such things into your box and a lot of people wouldn't notice.
I'd recommend going on a pork butchery course of some kind even if you don't intend to actually do any cutting yourself, just to get the knowledge.

[Anke]

As far as we know we got back what we expected but how do you get the liver. never had this from the lambs either.

You have to ask for the "pluck", better to tell them when you are actually booking the pigs in. It is unlikely that you get your own pluck (tongue, heart, lungs and liver), but then we have always been ok to get any back. Needs to be collected on the day of killing as you want it fresh. Unlikley that the abattoir will be prepared to freeze it for you.
When we used our local (now shut down) abattoir I normally would go back at lunchtime to collect, now that we have a long drive the new abattoir have been very helpful and we can bring our pigs in later in the morning when they have already started to kill, so we get a pluck back. It's always flash-fried liver for tea on these days! Our dog loves the lungs.

[ScotsGirl]

Well our 3 OSB went off a few weeks ago at 8 months. They weighed 69.8, 78.2 and 88.2kg and abattoir gave us the tags back. We definitely got around that amount back although I wanted heads etc for dogs but they mysteriously got taken by inspector! More likely sold on.


We tape measured before so we had a rough idea on weight and as they charge extra over 70kg as hair has to be removed one at a time in machine you would know if bigger. Ours weren't at all fat and tasted fab

[kja]

Well our 3 OSB went off a few weeks ago at 8 months. They weighed 69.8, 78.2 and 88.2kg and abattoir gave us the tags back. We definitely got around that amount back although I wanted heads etc for dogs but they mysteriously got taken by inspector! More likely sold

if anything is rejected/taken by inspectors you should be either given a report (sometimes emailed direct to you) or be shown a report on collection of your meat.

[cleopatra]

Well our 3 OSB went off a few weeks ago at 8 months. They weighed 69.8, 78.2 and 88.2kg and abattoir gave us the tags back. We definitely got around that amount back although I wanted heads etc for dogs but they mysteriously got taken by inspector! More likely sold

heads can be removed at abattoir or butchers. all my dogs eat them, they are fairly heavy too,, mind you our wee dog broke his canine tooth, presumably on all the bones they get.

[sc12011]

mrs snoodles - Yes i went to the big place.
The pigs were about 90 something kg each and 51 and 52kg off each one, but i told them i didnt want heads (asked for cheeks), trotters or any organs, so would this make up the extra weight that my breeder was talking about? She said she thought they would have weighed more than 90kg live, but if they were 90, then she would have expected about 60kg of meat...but i suppose if you count the extra bits that i didnt want, then it would add up to the 60kg...  
they had 21 and 23mm of fat, but they did look fairly lean actually before the went (to my unexperienced eye!) although the pigs themselves were massive 
The meat is lovely though
its all very confusing
 

[Tamsaddle]

 A 90 kg liveweight pig should give you 90 x 0.72 = 65 kg deadweight pig.   This would have no "organs", other than the kidney (approx 100 g), as the pluck is not included in this weight, and all the guts have been taken out by the time you get to the dead weight.   The head, trotters and tail weigh between 5 -6 kg so you are now left with 59 kg.  By the time the rest of the carcase is butchered, with some of the joints boned out and flare fat removed, you could easily be down to 51 or 52 kgs.   We do all our own butchery and usually get another 5 - 6 kgs of waste per pig in addition to the head/trotter waste.  I always weigh all our meat, mince and waste so I can add it all back together again at the end to see how close we are to the official deadweight, usually within 500 g.   Tamsaddle