[Roi du Rodentia]

I am shocked at the distinct lack of swine threads here! Bunnies are cute and cuddly,chickens and goats got personality and their uses as well,but for a real gots to eat proper food situation, and something to go with all those eggs you have got to get a pig!
If this big city boy turned farmer can learn to raise pigs to slaughter weight, then almost anyone can! I could barely tell the difference between a cow and a pig two out of three times on a good day when I started. The easiest way to tell? Pigs are WAY smarter and a much more appreciative audience when you feel like waxing poetic or philosophical. Don't ask how I know this, but they really enjoy a nice deep voice singing to them.
Notice I keep saying "pigs" and not hogs. The difference of course being that hogs are breeding stock while pigs are for food and should not be larger than 225 pounds or so when they meet their fate. I always bought feeder pigs from a breeder and let him deal with the hog issues while I had small but not for long beasties that made some delicious meals in just a few months with minimal feed costs.

 

[The_Blob]

well, Roi, it seems like you're the perfect candidate for the job!

I would be interested in how much it costs, how long it takes, how much other resources you need to expend & overall how hard it is to raise a pig (or five)

 

[Canadian]

Every Christmas my wife and I make a donation to World Vision to send Pigs to needy families in Africa. Love that bacon!

 

[The_Blob]

I was going to look into that, Canadian, but unfortunately if you read World Vision's fine print, they take your money & distribute throughout the programs THEY determine priority on, so your money may not ever make it the intended purchase but be used for another (assumptively equal) animal donation... the main problem I have with that is that I wish to take care of the problems in MY 'back yard' first before trying to tackle the rest of the world's problems & the 'helping the poor of the USA' section has the absolute lowest priority of any program they have...

it also kind of burns my arse that they won't do simple business transactions & actually SELL said livestock to people, which IMO would dramatically increase their ability to raise funds for their 'chosen' programs if they increased prices for livestock 'sales' by 10%... but THAT makes too much damn sense & is... horror of horrors! 'evil capitalism'...

meh

 

[Roi du Rodentia]

My financial data is rather dated but I can assure you that a feeder pig, roughly $50 apiece back in the days when I bought them could easily be fed as horrendously expensively or cheaply as you wish. Housing is a major concern unless you have herding dogs that will train to swine? I tried this and it never really worked.( I think the pigs learned to herd the dogs actually!)
Prior to the divorce, I worked it out so that I raised as many as twelve oinkers with my father-in-law providing the feed and a second farmer providing the grinder mixer so everyone basically bought their own oinker and paid their own butchering costs. CHEAP!
After the divorce, raising just two of the curious critters, I would go to the local feed store, spend a few hours jawing with everyone there and come back with a couple hundred pounds of 50:50 corn and oats mixture that formed the bulk of the pigs' diet. Total cost at that time, (Late 80's early 90's was like $6.00 per hundred weight) And it took typically about five or six months to convert little pork chop into sizzling slabs of bacon sized oink.
All my neighbors knew I raised pigs ( I wonder how?) and being WI, they'd drop by any milk that could not be shipped to the creameries and whenever I found eggs that hinted at being suspiciously over-ripe, the pigs got them too along with the fallen fruits of my fifteen apple trees and three grapevines.
The one real and under-appreciated value of pigs is that they positively love zucchini! Never again will you have to terrorize your neighbors with drive by zucchini drop-offs in the middle of the night nor would you fear being victimized by the same terror tactic as the pigs will make short work of any and all garden excess and refuse along with anything else they can fit into their mouths including the guy feeding them if he's not careful.
I was not a big advocate of high-protein supplements since they were first and foremost expensive and IMHO seemed to put fat on rather than lean muscle/meat. Your pigs will do just fine on grains and as wide a variety of other waste foods as you can scrounge. (Spaghetti dinners at the community center might be a good source of cooked pasta that the pigs will devour in no time at all even without a sauce!)
Kitchen scraps from your own kitchen, possibly a restaurant or two and you've pretty much got it though I never allowed my pigs to eat any "slop" that might contain pork waste products since that would make them cannibals, which they already are when necessary but I didn't see a need to encourage such a behavior, but I'm funny that way.

 

[The_Blob]

nice article on when & how to slaughter cows, goats, & pigs

Slaughtering and Butchering by Dynah Geissal Issue #23

 

[skip]

Last summer, a man gave us to pot-bellies he no longer wanted. About 175 lb a piece. makes some mighty fine eating. We took one to a local packing house, and cost us $120 for 130 lbs of meat. The second, we did ourselves. After Killing and gutting it, it was put into a smoker, and smoked with hickory for 12 hrs. We took it all off the bone, and froze it in meal-size portions. We just thaw it out as needed, put it in the slow-cooker with some home-made BBQ sauce, and we have a great meal.

 

[Turkish]

That's really great of you, Canadian. Althought, The_Blob is right, you have to be careful these days...those are so many money scammers out there! Hopefully your money is going where it is supposed to be! You'll get good karma coming your way, Can.

 

[mona]

My husband and I have raised several weinner pigs for the freezer and for the freezers of friends and family.

They are as easy as raising puppies. Playful and loyal. The eagerly welcome you into their life every morning and evening. They love the food, water baths and attention that you give them.

It takes 5 to 6 months to raise a pig to butcher size. We stoped feeding them after 10 or 11 50# bags of feed (plus kitchen scraps).

The 2 of us can eat a pig up in 12 months. Some parts of the pig are eatten quickly (butt bacon) and some parts take the full year.

Don't feed your pig meat, they will look for meat to eat (like chickens).

Definately a worth while project on any homestead.

 

[The_Blob]

My sister & I are thinking about getting a pig (just one to start) she wants to name it 'bacon' since that's what he will be... I think naming it is not such a good idea as she might start looking at it like a pet as opposed to pork chops. My plan for feeding it is to get food scraps from local restaurants whose proprietors I know, killing 2 birds with one stone by using something that would just goto landfill.

 

[Donba]

A friend of mine brought home a lamb intending to raise it and butcher it. His kids wanted to name it, so he named it din-din. Din-din eventually died of old age, never name an animal you intend to eat.

 

[Pessimistic2]

Mona....to quote you.."My husband and I have raised several weinner pigs for the freezer and for the freezers of friends and family. They are as easy as raising puppies. Playful and loyal. The eagerly welcome you into their life every morning and evening. They love the food, water baths and attention that you give them. It takes 5 to 6 months to raise a pig to butcher size. We stoped feeding them after 10 or 11 50# bags of feed (plus kitchen scraps)."

You are a cruel, cruel woman!! LMAO

 

[Pessimistic2]

World Vision....

Every Christmas my wife and I make a donation to World Vision to send Pigs to needy families in Africa. Love that bacon!

The Blob covered it.....read the fine print. Also, WVI does have a pretty good rating for the amount spent on "aid (82%)," but that is a weee bit deceptive, too, as that includes shipping, handling, and the administration of the program IN those foreign nations. At the risk of getting an earfull, why are you worrying about "starving Africans?" How about "starving North Americans," if you're gonna play supermarket? Or even better, how about asking WHY they are "starving" in the first place? (Warning, you may not like some of the answers, as in many cases it's their own doing.)

And yes, you're absolutely correct, I, personally, could care less about starving Africans. My thought is we should be taking care of AMERICANS, not playing welfare God to the rest of the world, much of which HATES OUR COUNTRY with a passion.

 

[terri9630]

We always name our animals. We've had Breakfast, Bacon, Pork chop, Ham hock, Mr Bacon Von Piggles worth (that one was female). Our steers names have been Lunch, Dinner, Supper, t bone, Porterhouse.... it's just a way to remind some that they are food, not pets.

 

[backlash]

My Grandparents always had a pig growing.
They would butcher it themselves and process everything.
It was always done according to the moon phase.
They went by the phase of the moon for most of their farming.
Grandpa always said the only thing they didn't use was the squeal.
Walked into their house and Grandma was cooking, it smelled wonderful.
Lifted the lid on the pot and there was a big pig head looking back.
I asked Grandpa why he didn't raise more beef and he said pigs were easier,got to the table faster and were cheaper.

 

[terri9630]

My Grandparents always had a pig growing.
They would butcher it themselves and process everything.
It was always done according to the moon phase.
They went by the phase of the moon for most of their farming.
Grandpa always said the only thing they didn't use was the squeal.
Walked into their house and Grandma was cooking, it smelled wonderful.
Lifted the lid on the pot and there was a big pig head looking back.
I asked Grandpa why he didn't raise more beef and he said pigs were easier,got to the table faster and were cheaper.

That's why we raise goats. I LOVE beef but money for feed, time to grow, space and equipment for butchering and freezer space make them a bad fit for us.

 

[LastOutlaw]

Our newest arrival.

 

[terri9630]

Our newest arrival.

So cute.....

 

[jeager106]

Raised pigs, hogs, if ya like for quite a while.
Can't even begin to recall how many I've butchered.
Hogs are smart.
Dad had one he named Charlie that would sit up and shake hands.
He took that one to the slaughterhouse as he couldn't bring himself
to kill Charlie.
I hated dipping the dead hog in a drum of scalding water to "shave" them.
Beef, chickens, goats, rabbits, lots of live stock when I was young.

Rabbits! We started with 3 does and a buck.
It seems over night we were swimming in rabbits.
We ate so many rabbits I refuse to eat a tame one to this day.
Wild ones are o.k. but only a couple.