[Billy Rhomboid]

Was just prompted by a remark in another thread about the size of pigs some abattoirs will handle, and wanted to ask: what attitudes people have found from their abattoirs regarding what they can get back.

We are very fortunate at the moment in having found a good local abattoir that lets us have everything we want. For the products we make we use the blood, the caul fat, the intestines themselves, the stomach and all the standard organs - liver, kidneys, heart, lungs. The whole pig in fact, barring gall baldder and spleen and eyeballs. We have to supply sealable barrels and have to be there on the day of slaughter to collect the blood and intestines (and put up with a fair degree of jocular cursing)and the rest is supplied when we collect the carcasses, but we are not proscribed from taking any of it.
Where we used to live the local abattoir refused to let us have blood and became almost apoplectic when I enquired about the intestines (and even became cagey about letting us have the liver, heart, lungs etc after that - I think I had marked my card as being some kind of weirdo).

I have friends in other parts of the country and Scotland who are not even able to get the liver and hearts, which strikes me as a huge  con - the abattoir are surely selling it on elsewhere. To say nothing of it being the property of the customer unless the law dictates otherwise.

What are other people's experiences on this front?

[robert waddell]

as you say it all depends on the abattoirs if your pig is to big for the line  ie the head touching the ground the head is binned
others as you say dont let you get the pluck this is regarded as there perk
your abattoir must have a road for eyeballs as we get them with the head 

[Hilarysmum]

Here, where rules are just a guideline - we have to preorder the blood.  We get back everything else, except when they have an order they cant fill then suddenly a tail or head may disappear, more often the kidneys or heart.  It all comes back on collection including the cleaned out intestines for sausage skins.

[Billy Rhomboid]

Lillian,  no sorry -poorly worded on my part, we do get the heads back with eyeballs intact, they are just something i have not found a use for - as with the spleen, gall bladder, trachea and those cartileginous bits inside the nasal cavity. Everything else we use from bladder to snout. Toenails we don't use now i think of it.

HM - I am impressed they clean the intestines for you. We have to do this ourselves. Am debating at what age I can delegate this task to the children.

[Hilarysmum]

I had never thought about this before, its part of the service.  As for the children start them young before they can speak if pos so they dont complain ....

[SallyintNorth]

something i have not found a use for - as with the spleen, gall bladder, trachea and those cartileginous bits inside the nasal cavity.

I used to buy horse (sorry), ox & pork spleen for my dogs.  Cooked just past pink, they (and the cats) loved it!

[Sudanpan]

With our first two I just asked for the butchered joints back, which is what I got. The next two I asked for, and got, the livers and hearts, plus a bag containing all the bones (inc heads) which was a mistake on my part cos I just wanted a few bones for our dogs and was not prepared for the heads!