[shygirl]

a bog standard farmers pig

does this exist?
iv ai-ed a fair few times and even though i like traditional pedigree breeds, i found the deerpark website quite inspiring with their dedication to breed, improvement and global export of pig hybrids. an awful lot of money and research and technology go into producing the right breeding beast.
they might be all the same colour but i dont think bog standard quite describes them and the effort behind producing them.
its like saying an "ordinary beef cow" when if you asked more about the way they were breed, the price of the bull etc and why they are bred they way they are, you'l find a passion and a long local history. ordinary doesnt really exist as if you move 100 miles they will be very different beasts.

if you are looking for a breeding gilt then choose the best that you can afford, as itl cost the same to feed as an ugly betty version. if it is registered then it gives you more oomph in marketing the meat/offspring.

I have a bit of a problem with this statement.
'Regardless of your GOS porker having pedigree parents it is still just any old pig if it has not been birth notified'.
erm...  no its not - its still a pedigree pig.

NO. its purebred NOT pedigree. pedigree has papers. i find the BPA website has good info on this topic and is partly there to help pig breeders achieve a slight profit on what is a very difficult business to survive in and also to keep standards high.
pedigree is breeding to the correct breed standard, correct confirmation, enough teats, long enough back etc, and will breed pure meaning the offspring will be almost identical.
without having a standard to aim for we could all end up with a mishmash of porkers with suspectibility to foot/leg lameness, not enough teats to feed a litter etc......more than just pork.
plus different breeds taste different so you cannot be sure the gos doesnt have a osb grandfather even if it looks like a gos. i bred a tamworth x gos litter and the weaners looked very similar to an osb in colour and appearance, and as most of my buyers were complete novices they wouldnt have known any different if id sold them as the more popular osb.  i remember seeing photos on here of what appeared to be saddleback piglets which didnt have a saddleback mother but it was a strong throwback. if sold through at mart etc, many people would have thought they were purebred saddlebacks just by appearance.

[Q]

I do understand where you are coming from Mandy.  I was just saying that the piece of paper doesnt change the taste of the pork only the cost to the producer.

[JulieWall]

First of all, many thanks to everyone who gave me helpful answers, much appreciated 

My own feeling is there is certainly a vast difference in the flavour and texture of GOS compared with the bland, tough meat of commercial fast growers, which are probably going to be hybrids anyway. This makes GOS more desirable to anyone who has tasted GOS pork, pedigree or not.

I wanted to know how much was a fair price to ask/expect to pay for a good meat animal, not destined for breeding and therefore not necessarily perfectly conforming to the breed standards. You cannot eat the 'pedigree'.
In under 9 months I expect to be selling a litter and want to ask a fair price, a price they will sell for quickly to other smallholders like me where smallholding is a lifestyle not a business, not to people wanting to sell pedigree pork and not at so low a price that greedy people will buy them cheap and sell them on either. Everyone has their own agenda naturally, but mine is just to cover the annual cost of keeping the sow and the AI. She's a pet who has the potential to pay her way and provide us with meat too.

[hughesy]

smallholding is a lifestyle not a business,

I don't see how this makes any sense. If it's a lifestyle and not a business what does it matter how much you buy or sell for? And while the GOS pork can rightly be elevated above commercial hybrid pork in status it isn't better in any way than any of the other traditional breeds and it has to be remembered that a badly reared pig will kill out poorly whatever the breed or cross.

[Marches Farmer]

Hmm, not sure the butcher at the Traditional Breeds Meat Marketing Scheme who raved about our GOS pork would agree there.  Horses for courses .... GOS produces superb quality pork IF it's been raised to the highest standards of pig husbandry and fed correctly at every stage of its life, including the sow when it was in utero.  Berkshire has a reputation for being a little drier in texture.  British Landrace and Pietrain are unlikely to put on the layer of fat necessary for top quality pork before they go to slaughter, unless they're kept (and fed) for longer than usual.  The Large White is possibly the most influential pig in the world with regard to bringing productivity and good eating qualities to breeds around the world, but as a pedigree breed is now quite rare.  And so on ...   To have individual breeds disappear into an amorphous mass of cross breeding is to lose the centuries of dedication and knowledge that went into producing these breeds in the first place, along with their attributes of hardiness, fertility and longevity that may well be needed to feed a hungry world in centuries to come.  Tub thumping over .....

[oaklandspigs]

Whilst I would not like to see "amorphous mass of cross breeding" - we sell many crossbreeds. 

These have the advantage of giving some hybrid vigour, and creating some really pretty and interesting piglets - for instance ginger saddlebacks & tri-coloured spotty pigs.

Our crosses are first generation - eg old spot to osb.  We have 8 different breeds, and breed may pure including rare bloodline saddlebacks, winning top prizes at county shows, and last year picked up best in breed at the South of England show. 

However we can't have 8 different breeding boars, and need at least two saddleback boars at any one time to prevent in-breeding. 

We therefore buy in pedigree breeds, and use AI to get some next generation, but we also frequently use cross-breeding both to generate income from piglet sales, and make keeping these viable.

This all helps keep these breeds going. 

[hughesy]

Nothing wrong with crossing. Nothing wrong with commercially produced pigs. It all has it's place in the greater scheme of things. My gripe is the assumption that GOS pork is better than any of the other native breeds simply because it now has protected status in terms of trading standards which really is only a labelling issue anyway. The same is true of any breed of pork as far as the law is concerned. I cannot sell my pork as British Saddleback pork unless the pigs are birth notified from registered pedigree parents and likewise for any other breed.

[Fowgill Farm]

My gripe is the assumption that GOS pork is better than any of the other native breeds simply because it now has protected status in terms of trading standards which really is only a labelling issue anyway.
The same is true of any breed of pork as far as the law is concerned. I cannot sell my pork as British Saddleback pork unless the pigs are birth notified from registered pedigree parents and likewise for any other breed.

Right Hughsey a little more info for you on why GOS IS better, To gain European TSG status the GOS club worked over a period of ten years, proving that very point, extensive testing at great cost was carried at I believe the food labs at Bristol University by eminent scientists on GOS produce versus other porks rare breed and commercial to create a humungous document to take to DEFRA whose backing was needed to go to the European auditors, it gave the unanimous verdict that it was and so we were able to get TSG which we believe only one other breed of animal in the UK has (Turkeys!). So scientifically at least it is proven the best.
Secondly since Waitrose got its arse whupped by the GOS club they have turned their attention to other rare breeds and the Berkshire & Hampshire breeds are now in their sights, neither breeds have as I understand the financial clout of the GOS to fight this is where I believe the BPA should be making some contribution (but chooses not to! as far as I am aware). I was not aware that the LACORS(labelling) ruling included Saddleback pork only coming from pedigree saddlebacks . As far as I was aware it was only the GOS that had this but well done if it is being applied by the Saddleback community too. :thumbsup:this can only help our traditional and minority breeds.
At the end of the day we all have our favourite breeds and strive to promote them the best we can. At the end of the day the Pig must champion and its survival depends on us getting it right now for future generations to come.
mandy

[devonlad]

Your original question is one that we ourselves would like an answer to. We always prefer a rare breed as we believe the pork to be far superior in taste and texture.  We only have the facility to raise bought in weaners and if we're not careful can pay a premium for the weaners which we cannot ever recoup. Last time we bought some british lop costing£35 each. They were not pedigree but sold to us as purebred. Subsequently we could only sell tge pork as outdoor reared and got no more than the going rate for pork with no rare breed premium. We later saw gos unregistered at market go for £8 and couldn't help thinking we had been naive and paid over the odds for something we could only sell as pork. For next time we're struggling to decidewhat we should do-it seems for us that the only reason not to buy far more cheaply at market is the not knowing how they've been raised to that point

[hughesy]

I think this has been stretched out of proportion in relation to the original question. I do stand by what I said earlier though regarding labelling and trading standards. The GOS situation aside, if I sold pork at my local market which I do every week, and stated that it was pedigree British Saddleback (or any other breed for that matter) and it was proven not to be what I said it was then the trading standards department would be wanting to kick my arse in just the same way as if I had said it was GOS and it wasn't. So in many ways this is similar to the horsemeat scandal of last year in that it's a labelling issue and in reality has little to do with quality. A poorly produced, fat, disease ridden GOS still benefits from the protection unfortunately and you can't pretend for a minute that every GOS pork producer has top notch standards any more than the keepers of any other breed or indeed commercial crossbred pigs. I'm a firm believer in promoting pedigree pork from our traditional breeds and will strive to do the best I can but I live in the real world.

[Marches Farmer]

I take your point Hughesy, but if you saw the specified standard of pig welfare you have to meet to be awarded TSG status (not to mention an inspection of your herd and housing by one of the top GOS pig breeders in the country) I think you'd be delighted that the TSG GOS are being raised to such incredibly high husbandy rules.

[shygirl]

i thought tamworth meat was the winner of that bristol test? iv certainly read people claiming that.
i prefer tamworth meat and gos is very different to it and suits different dishes to the tamworth. both are excellent though.
i dont see how one breed is better than another as its down to personal taste. its like saying x wine is better than y wine.
what is important in my opinion is that meat being sold as pedigree is actually pedigree and not a pirate version 

to see piglets sold at a mart for £8 probably has a sob story behind it - ie the breeders produced in the wrong season, the market was saturated or they didnt have a marketing plan in place to sell them - believe me - marketing litter after litter does take time and effort. no way did they cover their costs and were just cutting their losses by selling at their price. £35 a weaner isnt a rip off price.

[Fowgill Farm]

to see piglets sold at a mart for £8 probably has a sob story behind it - ie the breeders produced in the wrong season, the market was saturated or they didnt have a marketing plan in place to sell them - believe me - marketing litter after litter does take time and effort. no way did they cover their costs and were just cutting their losses by selling at their price. £35 a weaner isnt a rip off price.

And so say all of us!  this is why we jump on people when they say they want to have a few piglets off a sow.
See "What are we going to do with all these piglets" article under pig management on the GOS website.
http://www.gospbc.co.uk/so-you-want-to-keep-pigs-part-5/
Mandy

[JulieWall]

Well, as this seems to be a cause for debate about breed I wish to revise my question;
How much is a fair price to pay for a nice healthy outdoor reared piglet which is not undersized?.......of any breed?
I too have seen GOS weaners at the mart which went for a tenner each but that was a real bargain. They were puny little things though but for a tenner you could afford to feed them up a bit.
 

[sokel]

I paid £30 each for 8 week old GOSs without any papers last year (or do I have to call them GOS type  )
I have noticed them being sold from £35 upwards on preloved  this week