# How many pounds of bacon on average?



## TSYORK (Mar 16, 2006)

I've got three hogs that are going to Siberia on vacation next Wednesday. One of the hogs will be processed into whole-hog sausage. The other two will be processed into cuts. The largest hog is mine, while the other one I have half, possibly all of it, sold. Horton, my hog, probably weighs in at close to 500 pounds. How much bacon on average should I get from a hog this size. The other hog probably weighs 450-475. I plan on curing/smoking my own bacon. I just am trying to plan on how much I might have per hog.

Thanks,


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## SLADE (Feb 20, 2004)

A lot.


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## TSYORK (Mar 16, 2006)

LOL! I was hoping for a more quantatative answer, but it it did make me laugh. Thanks,


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## Guest (Sep 11, 2009)

This says about 15% of the weight will be bacon:

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_much_bacon_comes_from_one_pig


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## TSYORK (Mar 16, 2006)

Dear Lord in Heaven Above!!! If that's true, and my hanging weights average 350 each, then I'll get about 50 pounds of bacon per pig. 

Have mercy.....


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## Guest (Sep 11, 2009)

TSYORK said:


> Dear Lord in Heaven Above!!! If that's true, and my hanging weights average 350 each, then I'll get about 50 pounds of bacon per pig.
> 
> Have mercy.....


If that's too much, send some to me!!!


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## TSYORK (Mar 16, 2006)

As I read the link, I believe they say it's 15% of live weight. My hogs weight 500 pounds each, so I'm looking at 150 pounds of bacon between the two hogs. The other one (I'm butchering three) is going to be ground into whole-hog sausage, everything except the tenderloin; that's mine! 


With 150 pounds of bacon, I might just need your address! lol


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## karenbrat1 (Jun 25, 2009)

Can you HAVE "too much" bacon?? Fried by itself, used in a pot o'beans (cooked dry beans), used in a pot of green beans and potatoes, baked beans, wrapped around Cajun Stuffed Jalapenos (recipe on Taste of Home, OMG they're good), bacon sandwiches, crumbled in salad, crumbled in scrambled eggs or omelets...

Hoo boy I'm salivating now. I LOVE bacon!

Karen B in northern Idaho


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## Welshmom (Sep 7, 2008)

You don't have to smoke all your bacon at once. You can have the sides cut into slabs of your chosen size (say, 2 lbs. ea), and just freeze them until you want to smoke them. This cut is called fresh side pork, as opposed to bacon.
That's how I did it, and it's worked out well for me. It simply requires some advance planning, like a week ahead of time, to get the side pork thawed and then cured and then smoked.

btw, I also took half my ground pork unseasoned, and am turning it into homemade sausage in 5 lb. batches. This weekend it's time for another batch of italian sausage to kick off footbal season right! I now have a grinder, so next time, I wont have it ground at the butcher, I'll be able to do that myself.


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## Beulah Gardens (Feb 26, 2008)

You can NEVER have too much bacon! Those are some BIG pigs though. Are you butchering them yourself?


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## TSYORK (Mar 16, 2006)

Help me Jesus, NO! If I butchered two 500-lb and one 425-lb hogs, I'd be over at the nutty wing at the hospital by the time I finished. We have a shop pretty local to where I live that does great work, so that's where they are going. They're a little pricey, but they do great work. I say their pricey, but I suppose they're in-line with what the other butchers' are charging; $30.00 kill fee and 50-cents per pound vacumn-sealed.

I've fed these hogs as natural as I can. Mostly, they've only received garden produce, dairy chop, a natural hog feed that I have mixed at the mill, and free-range eggs. Honestly, I've got quite a bit of money tied up in these three boogers. I've had some folks say they would like to purchase some of the sausage. The smallest hog of the three, 425-pounder, will be made into whole hog sausage. I've priced it at $4.00 per pound. Am I over-pricing it? I don't really think so, but I wanted to ping the price against you all.


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## oldcj5guy (Jul 24, 2006)

$4.00 seems pretty on the mark for regular sausage. If you did a couple of different blends you could go up .25-50 cents a pound. Of course it all comes down to what the market will bear but I wouldn't go less than $4


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## TSYORK (Mar 16, 2006)

With this being whole-hog sausage, I'm putting the hams and shoulders in it, too, I think it's worth $4.00 per pound.


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## Beulah Gardens (Feb 26, 2008)

TSYORK said:


> Help me Jesus, NO! If I butchered two 500-lb and one 425-lb hogs, I'd be over at the nutty wing at the hospital by the time I finished.


LOL! just askin'. I thought how in the world would you ever.........
I think $4.00 is an awesome price, around here you can't even get the nasty store stuff for that.


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## TSYORK (Mar 16, 2006)

Beulah Gardens said:


> LOL! just askin'. I thought how in the world would you ever.........
> I think $4.00 is an awesome price, around here you can't even get the nasty store stuff for that.


Unfortunately, I tried confining them for loading onto the trailer last night. To say the least, that DID NOT work! They absolutely went crazy and more or less was going to attack me if I didn't back off. My dad said, "well if push comes to shove, there's a vat up under the barn." I have no plans to scald hogs this week! Hopefully somehow the Good Lord will help us in getting them on the trailer; if he doesn't help, we'll never get them on.


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## Beulah Gardens (Feb 26, 2008)

OH MY! I'd tell you we always use a bucket on their head but I don't even think a trash can would work...I can't even wrap my mind around the size of those pigs.....
Could you park the trailer in with them and leave a little grain inside or.....or...... my heavens I do not envy you at all...


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## BamaSpek (Aug 15, 2008)

are you tryin to get all 1500 lb of hogs on the same trailer at the same time ? If so can you make a video of the whole thing? 

My prayers are with ya


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## TSYORK (Mar 16, 2006)

Believe it or not, all three pigs lined themselves up together and walked into the trailer, together in-step. That was because I had put a trough in there with milk, eggs, and feed in it for them to eat/drink. Everything was going just as planned, until one of the larger ones FREAKED OUT for some reason and cut a shine! He doubled back on me and my dad so we had to jump out of the way. Fearing we'd get none of them on after this ordeal, we slammed the trailer doors shut and took two to slaughter yesterday morning. 

I suppose my weight was off on the largest one. However he had a HUGE head. Our slaughterhouse considers hanging weight as the animal with the hooves off, guts out, and head off. The two hanging weights for Horton and Wilbur were 230 and 200, respectively. I don't suppose that's too bad for six-month old hogs. I've got one more to go in the next couple of weeks, then two durocs that will be ready in January.


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## Beulah Gardens (Feb 26, 2008)

You named them?!?!?!? That's against the rules for butcher critters..LOL. 
Any way those are big pigs and I'm glad you got at least two taken care of.


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## Lazy J (Jan 2, 2008)

Based on the carcass weights you provided Horton weighed just over 300 lb and Wilbur around 270. 

There is no way a 6 month of hog can weigh 500 lb, that would be a 2.70 #/day of age growth rate which is just impossible from birth to 6 months.

I'm glad you got them loaded without injury to you or your father.

Jim


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## jil101ca (Jul 2, 2007)

> You named them?!?!?!? That's against the rules for butcher critters..LOL.


LOL My 8 year old DD named our hog "Wilbur" yes she knows we are going to eat him. Last year she really enjoyed eating "Roger" the goat, she said Roger was very yummy.

Last years hog gave us 17 lbs of bacon from 207 lbs hanging weight.


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## TSYORK (Mar 16, 2006)

I guess I'm just a bad judge of pig weight, but if you had seen these pigs you would have sworn they would have weighed more than what their hanging weight showed. However, 430 pounds hanging weight of naturally raised, homegrown pork isn't too shabby, and I've still got the other one to butcher that went AWOL. Snortin, brother to Horton, is about the same size as he was, so I figure he'll finish close to the 230 mark, as well.

Oh yes! I name them all. Last years was Pork Chop and Bacon. Earlier this year I killed a steer named Bleu, short for Bleu Burger. I got Chuck, short for chuck roast fattening up now in the pasture and will move him to hay and grain in November. I just picked up two Duroc weaners, also; they are T.L (short for tenderloin) and Smokehouse. Naming my food doesn't bother me in the least. However, I can't say the same for my wife, lol. Usually I get the rest of her steak once I start mooing and lowing at the dinner table. It's hilarious!


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## Beulah Gardens (Feb 26, 2008)

Ours are butchered at home too... saves the problem of getting them in the trailer. We give ours names like porkchop or BBQ just so we know who we are talking about while raising them BUT Horton and Wilbur...those are pettin' names. LOL

Rose, I had to laugh at the anatomy lesson, once my children cooked the tail over the fire...as in Little house in the Big Woods.... it was good as long as you didn't think too long about where it'd been. I stopped them short when they wanted to blow up the bladder.


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