# Cost of raising a hog and butchering



## Dad2ms

Question for all you experts. I do not have any pigs. Recently got into goats and have had chickens for years. 

The more I look at raising a hog for my family to consume the more it doesn't seem cost effective. By the time you buy the pig, raise and feed then take to slaughter house would it not be cheaper to just buy one raised? I really want to do this but just want the numbers make sense. Help this newbie!


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## gerold

Dad2ms said:


> Question for all you experts. I do not have any pigs. Recently got into goats and have had chickens for years.
> 
> The more I look at raising a hog for my family to consume the more it doesn't seem cost effective. By the time you buy the pig, raise and feed then take to slaughter house would it not be cheaper to just buy one raised? I really want to do this but just want the numbers make sense. Help this newbie!


It cost more to raise a hog then it does to buy a butcher hog.


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## ShannonR

ok. The disclaimer first. I will likely butcher my spelling and grammar trying to type on this stupid phone. Please forgive me. Now that thats out of the way... Is there any way you could secure feed source for your hogs before buying them in? Maybe throwaway produce from supermarket or out of date bakery goods? I too have budget concetns with raising hogs unless I can first secure a food source besides the hog pellets. Weanling piglet prices here are $125 to 250 and I have decided for this year at keast that buying for me is cheaper than buying a weanling for feeding out. But yeah, costs drop drastically with a good supply of bread and you get amazing bacon too! The dealbreaker is that for around $100 more than I can buy a piglet for I can buy a butcher ready hog someone.is trying to dump quick. Hope that made sense.


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## Wild_Bill

Buy a slaughter hog. Finish it how you like. Easy to take it up to 300-350 for not much cost. I can buy slaughter hogs around here for no more then .65 lb. I'm not touching feeders for a while. Feed for a month or 2 and you can have what you want


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## highlands

I figure that the cost of getting pork to fork breaks down into three major areas:
30% Piglet
30% Feed
30% Processing
10% Other like infrastructure, etc.
The rest is profit...

If you want to cut the cost then you do vertical integration to save money in those first three areas - the fourth is pretty hard to change.

How much each of those will cost depends on the quality you choose to go with:
Piglet:
$?? Cost of keeping your own breeder stock (not economically worth it until you do about 50 pigs a year)
vs
$35 Auction house cull piglet that is going to have more disease problems and require more feed 
vs
$100 to $250 High quality pastured pig genetics that can get most of it's food from the land. Good genetics makes an amazing difference in growth rate, conformation, disease resistance. This is why I breed my own - to control this.
vs
$300 to $400 Actual value of high quality feeder pigs.

Feed: (Note this is a spectrum, not an either or)
$0ish Pasture that you already have if you went with the better pig and supplemented with free dairy, veggies, etc you can find or produce
vs
$250 Cheap commodity bought by the bag (you're not big enough to buy in bulk and don't consider it unless you can go through the feed quickly because if it molds you lose the feed and may kill the pig)
vs 
$400 Organic feed

Processing:
$0 if you do it yourself and already have the tools
vs
$250 if you have it USDA slaughtered, butchered, sausage, smoked, vacuum packaged

Range: @ 150 lbs cuts and edible oddments assumed
$285 -> $1.90/lb Pastured Pig home slaughter and butcher home consumption no sale
$535 -> $3.56/lb Penned cheap pig on full commercial feed USDA processing
$750 -> $5.00/lb Organic grain fed heritage pig USDA processing

If you're paying someone else to raise the pig for you then figure on a little bit higher price but then you can buy half a pig or a quarter pig and not have the work to do.

Each choice along the way affects the other options and the quality of the meat. It could be more or less depending on your resources and your choices.

If you're looking for cheap, buy manager's special (about to go out of date) at the super market. I raise about 400 pigs on pasture and I can't touch that on-sale price. But then neither can anyone else. That's being sold at a loss. And it's poor quality.

If you're looking for quality, raise your own on pasture supplementing as needed and butcher it yourself to save the largest single easily removed cost: processing.

These articles may be helpful:

http://sugarmtnfarm.com/2006/07/04/what-is-a-half-pig-share/

http://sugarmtnfarm.com/2005/03/30/keeping-a-pig-for-meat/

Keep in mind that the numbers change over the years. We're coming out of a period when there were shortages of piglets so the piglet price went higher. Piglet prices are highest in the spring and low in the fall. Grain prices were also high but have dropped some - drought and ethanol pressures. Grain prices go up and down over the years, vary greatly with what you buy, GMO vs organic vs bin scrapings vs corn/soy vs wheat vs mycotoxin tainted, etc. Buying at the 6 ton price is significantly cheaper than by the 50 lb bag. I based the numbers above on published web site data as of today July 1st, 2015. Then there's inflation. 

What is going to be cheapest vs what is going to be best for you will vary with what you have locally available and may change for you over time.

Cheers,

-Walter


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## cooper101

"Expensive" depends on what you want to have when you're done. The processor I use has a $1.59 a pound sale every March. They barely break even on it, but do it to keep from laying off their cutters in their slow season. So a half pig costs about $120 out the door. It's just standard, commodity pork, and if that's what you want, it's the best deal I've seen and you could never touch it raising one yourself. 

I get prospective customers asking me why they should pay triple that for our pigs. I get existing buyers telling me they would never buy any pork but ours because it's so good.

If it's a purely economic decision, find a sale, fill the freezer and save money and time. If you want better pork, raised in conditions you control, and some fun along the way, raise your own, but it will cost you more.


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## gibbsgirl

We have not raised any yet. But, I think we're getting pretty close to trying it.

Besides the varying costs of how it's processed, I have played with the numbers a bit to see if I could get my costs down by raising 2-5 instead of 1-2.

That may be what ultimately helps us make it happen. If I can get some friends or family interested in sharing the costs if my family does the work of raising them, we may be able to off-set our $$ costs significantly without increasing the time and set-up costs.

Hope that makes sense.


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## cooper101

There's sort of a rule of quarters. I found that if you sell 3/4 of what you raise, even at a fairly modest price, you can cover the cost of the quarter you keep. So, raise 2, sell 3 halves, and your half is about free and you can cover some startup costs. It's as easy to raise 2 as 1.


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## M88A1

By the numbers it will cost you more to do it yourself. If you choose to purchase it from the store/butcher/processor you don't have control of what it was fed. How it was raised. Quality of the animal in the first place. Store bought pork seems overly lean and dry. 1 thing I have learned the breed depends on the type of cuts you want. More experienced folks can add to that, on what breeds are best for Bacon or Ribs. What breeds are best for large Hams or Boston Butts.


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## gibbsgirl

M88A1 said:


> By the numbers it will cost you more to do it yourself. If you choose to purchase it from the store/butcher/processor you don't have control of what it was fed. How it was raised. Quality of the animal in the first place. Store bought pork seems overly lean and dry. 1 thing I have learned the breed depends on the type of cuts you want. More experienced folks can add to that, on what breeds are best for Bacon or Ribs. What breeds are best for large Hams or Boston Butts.


That is info I would be very excited to have if anyone is able to share some.


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## highlands

gibbsgirl said:


> I have played with the numbers a bit to see if I could get my costs down by raising 2-5 instead of 1-2.


It's about as easy to raise four as to raise one.



M88A1 said:


> 1 thing I have learned the breed depends on the type of cuts you want. More experienced folks can add to that, on what breeds are best for Bacon or Ribs. What breeds are best for large Hams or Boston Butts.


For meat go with a bacon breed also known as a meat breed and not a lard breed. Good examples of meat breeds are Tamworth, Duroc, Yorkshire, Hampshire, Berkshire, Large Black - that's in progression from lean to more marbling. The age you slaughter at and the feed will also make a big difference. More info in these articles about our experience with breeds:

http://sugarmtnfarm.com/2015/06/11/lard-vs-bacon-pigs/

http://sugarmtnfarm.com/2011/09/10/four-sows-and-piglets/

and here's an article with a Pork Cut Chart:

http://sugarmtnfarm.com/2014/04/04/what-good-is-a-pig-cuts-of-pork-nose-to-tail/

that goes into this further.

Some breeds are long. Some are short bodied. Some have big butts. You can find a lot of photos and more discussion on the Oki breed site here:

http://www.ansi.okstate.edu/breeds/swine/

Lots of good photos showing typical animals for the breeds.

-Walter


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## gibbsgirl

Thanks highland, one of things I was concerned about is that if my family wasn't impressed with our harvest on the pig project they would not be enthusiastic about continuing it after the first attempt. I think these links will help a lot.


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## simi-steading

I don't get why people send their animals to the butcher... OK, MAYBE cattle, just because not many people have a way to handle that kind of weight... BUT.. 

Butcher it yourself... If you get a pig cheap, then feed it out, and butcher it yourself, you're going to be spending less than if you bought all that meat at the store.. 

If you send it to the butcher, you often can't guarantee you will get your own meat back... Some places do, but it's luck of the draw.. 

I've been cutting up my own meat for a long time... Not only is it's cheaper, but you know what you have... You know you didn't short yourself..


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## simi-steading

gibbsgirl said:


> Thanks highland, one of things I was concerned about is that if my family wasn't impressed with our harvest on the pig project they would not be enthusiastic about continuing it after the first attempt. I think these links will help a lot.


Be careful with kids... they like to turn dinner into pets... I've got friends that have raised about 8 pigs now, and not one has been butchered or sold, as was planned..


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## gibbsgirl

We've been blessed on that front. Our kids have always had a few favorites amongst our poultry and goats, that have been spared the knife. But, mostly, they figure it's all here to make food whether breeding, laying, or actually butchering. They hate to even throw back fish instead of eating them.

I'm hoping they'll treat pigs like the sheep we've had. Never had one that they wanted to keep. They've always been fine with knowing they'd all end up being butchered!


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## highlands

gibbsgirl said:


> Thanks highland, one of things I was concerned about is that if my family wasn't impressed with our harvest on the pig project they would not be enthusiastic about continuing it after the first attempt. I think these links will help a lot.


Don't show them the math until after they eat some...


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## Dad2ms

Thanks for all the info. Another question regarding feed. If I buy feed in bulk from the local coop what kind of feed should I buy to get a feeder pig to butcher weight? Corn, grain or what would be the most cost effective way?


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## TnAndy

We raise 2-3 year. 2 for us, and the last few years, one for a buddy that helps us on killing and cutting up. We do our own on the farm. We feed a combination of commercial pig ration, starting with 18% protein, and working down to 14% as the get bigger. We also feed them garden scraps, and I usually grow some pumpkins and field corn for them. This year, following what Highlands does, I've put them in a new lot with about 1/2ac of fescue/clover pasture to see how that does.

Here are my pig records for the last few years. Some years, my record as far as weight didn't get recorded. We usually shoot for around 275-300lbs live weight, having found the feed conversion drops off fairly steep after that weight.

2009:

Mid May, bought two 2mo/old, weaned, cut shoats, Hampshire type (white) $60ea.

Slaughtered one 10/15/09, estimated weight 400lbs. Had $271 in commercial feed in him.
Slaughtered the second one 12/18/09, estimated weight was 475. Had $329 in him.

2010:

9/12/10 (got them late that year) Bought two 'barely' weaned (they were small) cut shoats for $80. Some red breed.

Slaughtered both 1/14/2011. Commercial feed in them was total of $527.
Weight estimated to be 250lbs ea.

2011:

5/23/11 bought 3 black, weaned, cut shoats $40 each.

Slaughtered 10/23/11. Feed them $746 in commercial feed. Don't have a weight noted.

2012:

6/27/12 Bought 3 white, cut, shoats from a neighbor $80ea. One of them got sick and dies within a week, and he replaced it.
Slaughtered 1/15/2013. We had $874 in commercial feed in them.


2013: We had plenty in the freezer and didn't raise any.

2014:

3/27/14, bought 2 really small (from my notes) cut shoats $65ea. My buddy bought his own ($100, but it was about the same size as mine) and brought it over 5/22/14.

8/29 Slaughter one of mine and his. I had $302 in commercial feed in mine, he had $243 in his. I slaughtered my last one early November, and had $392 in commercial feed in him.


2015:

5/7/2015: Two cut males, and one female, about 6 weeks old. $65 each. 

They look to be over 100lbs now, and I have $223 in commercial feed bought so far ( but still have about 250lbs not fed them yet.....should last until late this month)


As you can see, the price of weaned piglets varies quite a bit from year to year. I get them where I can. Price local on Craig's list is running $65-$75 ea.

Feed cost for 16% 'grower' had varied from around $9/50lb bag to a high of nearly $11 thru those years. Last I bought 1 June was $10.10.


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## Dad2ms

Thanks for the info tnandy. Where do you buy your feed? Local coop or somewhere like tsc?


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## simi-steading

I buy my feed at a local feed store. Tractor Supply is WAY too expensive... I have three pigs.. I mix 200lbs of cracked corn with 100lbs of hog finishing pellets.. that runs me $51 a month for feed for the three..

I also pull a lot of grass and weeds for them they like, and I pull small apples off my trashy old apple tree for them, along with kitchen scraps every week or so..

But I also have smaller pigs.. around 200lbs or so each...


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## TnAndy

Dad2ms said:


> Thanks for the info tnandy. Where do you buy your feed? Local coop or somewhere like tsc?



Local Co-op. TSC locally doesn't carry pig food.


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## SpicerFarm

Dad2ms said:


> By the time you buy the pig, raise and feed then take to slaughter house would it not be cheaper to just buy one raised? I really want to do this but just want the numbers make sense. Help this newbie!


Take the time to secure a pig through buying or bartering. Care for it and raise it to the slaughter weight you want. Take it to a butcher and have it packaged up nice and pretty. Don't worry about the numbers- The satisfaction of doing all this is Priceless!


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## TheFarmerMommy

simi-steading said:


> I don't get why people send their animals to the butcher... OK, MAYBE cattle, just because not many people have a way to handle that kind of weight... BUT..
> 
> Butcher it yourself... If you get a pig cheap, then feed it out, and butcher it yourself, you're going to be spending less than if you bought all that meat at the store..
> 
> If you send it to the butcher, you often can't guarantee you will get your own meat back... Some places do, but it's luck of the draw..
> 
> I've been cutting up my own meat for a long time... Not only is it's cheaper, but you know what you have... You know you didn't short yourself..


I hear ya. But at least in my state, I can't sell the meat unless it's been butchered under USDA inspection. 

And I'm weeping at the $120-250 per pig that some folks are paying. I pay about $500 a pig. This is a very high COL area and I certainly recoup the money when I sell the meat. But yikes!


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## J.T.M.

It takes around 550 lbs.+ / - of feed and about 3.5 months + / - to get a 40 lber up to a 285 lber in a confinement operation ( if you keep them healthy ) . In my area you can get a hog butchered for about $ 90.00 and what ever the value of the pork the butcher stole from you .


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## TnAndy

J.T.M. said:


> ..... what ever the value of the pork the butcher stole from you .



Yep. Exactly. I'd be willing to bet there are dang few butchers that buy any meat.

One of the primary reasons we built our own walk-in cooler and once the pigs get here, they never leave the farm again. Secondary reasons are: Our process is much cleaner, we cut the way we want to eat the cut, my dogs get all the scraps I want to save for them, and we render our lard.


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## J.T.M.

TnAndy said:


> Yep. Exactly. I'd be willing to bet there are dang few butchers that buy any meat.
> 
> One of the primary reasons we built our own walk-in cooler and once the pigs get here, they never leave the farm again. Secondary reasons are: Our process is much cleaner, we cut the way we want to eat the cut, my dogs get all the scraps I want to save for them, and we render our lard.


 Is this in your house ? What an awesome ideal :thumb:


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## TnAndy

Built a 12x22' room on the back of the garage, and part of that is a 6x6 cooler. 

Door is is off an old commercial cooler, the walls inside are 4" of foam board and finished with fiberglass panels from building supply place. Refrigeration is a used 10,000 BTU window AC and a "Coolbot" controller that allows the AC to run on down to mid 30 degree range.

Knocked a hole in the back wall of our garage. Built a flue for a wood cook stove out there as well.



















Poured slab, framed walls. You can see the hole for the window AC in that back wall.











Pic of cooler framed in. Door set, foam not on walls yet. Put a small electrical sub-panel out there for just that room. Space to the right of the cooler is now a walk-in pantry.











Pretty much finished photo. Tiled floor slopes to center drain, tiled the walls 4' up so I can hose the entire thing down with hot water. Wood cook stove (because I couldn't get it in our main kitchen remodel....chimney not practical there)










Right side of room. Deep commercial sink (craig's list), used dishwasher to run jars, 30gal undercounter water heater, with a hot water rated hose to wash down the entire room as needed. Cabinets not quite done in this shot, but you get the general idea.











Pretty much everything in the way of stuff is used (wood stove, appliances, sink, cooler door, etc) (craig's list), I'm a real scrounger. Even the tile is some I bought years ago on close out. All the framing is lumber cut off my place on my sawmill. All I really buy new is concrete, sheetrock, and insulation. Even that lovely Andersen window is used. 

A little planning, and scrounging, and you can build stuff DANG cheap...and if I ain't the king of cheap, I'm at least a prince......ahahahaaa.....


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## gerold

Hi Andy.

Build my butcher shop past winter and this summer. Almost done. In the middle is the butcher shop on one side is smoke house. On the other end is the cool room for pork and meat storage. I have 10k btu and a 12k btu ac. I may use the (cool bot) on one ac. Question is what did the (cool bol) unit cost. and where did you get it?


Best,
Gerold.


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## J.T.M.

I had to google cool bot as I have never heard of it .Uses a window air conditioner ???
That sound you hear is the gears turning in my head 
http://storeitcold.com/


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## gerold

Thanks it sells for $300 bucks. I may use it on my 12k btu.


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## TnAndy

Yeah, gave 300 for the Coolbot, and a 100 for a used 10k AC.

Be SURE you look over the guy's website, as he lists AC brands that work well with the coolbot, and those that do not. You have to have a thermostat hanging out you can get too after you remove the front trim panel. I use a Samsung, and it works just fine.

The Coolbot basically applies heat to the AC thermostat (you duct tape the two leads together) until the room reaches the temp you set on the Coolbot, fooling the AC into thinking the room is warmer than it actually is.....otherwise most window AC cut off around low to mid 60 degree range.


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## TnAndy

gerold said:


> Hi Andy.
> 
> Build my butcher shop past winter and this summer. Almost done. In the middle is the butcher shop on one side is smoke house. On the other end is the cool room for pork and meat storage. I have 10k btu and a 12k btu ac. I may use the (cool bot) on one ac. Question is what did the (cool bol) unit cost. and where did you get it?
> 
> 
> Best,
> Gerold.


Hey Gerold....post some pics.....love to see what you cooked up !


Would have made mine bigger, but I had a limited space there to work with.....that side of the house falls off down a steep hill to the creek below, so I worked with what I had. Wasn't really planning that addition when I built the house in 1985.....one of those after thoughts ! 

And, too, it's an occasional use thing with us.....couple/three pigs year, one beef, few deer, and some canning (wife really prefers do the canning in the house main kitchen)from time to time. We keep the Weston vac sealer set up out there on the counter top that gets used all summer, and right now have two small chest freezers (we have 6 freezers total) out there...they are on mobile bases so they can roll out the door easy if we need the room to work.

The walk-in cooler actually doubles as storage....I roll the meat band saw in there, trash can on casters we use for bones, and that kind of stuff. Put the wood cook stove as a backup cooking source should we ever need it, but it mostly gets fired to provide a little heat out there if winter temps dip into the single digit range. The room is well insulated (2x6 walls, 12" blown in the ceiling), so it doesn't take much to heat it.


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## gerold

Very nice set-up. I like the cool bot idea. I may use it. 
Away from home right now on a job. Can't post any photos of my building right now. 
Hired help taking care of my stock for a little while.


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## highlands

The Coolbot maker cautions about how to use it and what to use it for. Read their web site carefully.


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## miraclemant

I recently found a way to "crack" my own corn. I had seen online that you could run corn thru a wood chipper, and it would crack the corn. Darned if it doesn't work........ I would guess about 99% of the corn gets cracked. And I am using an electric chipper (14 amp motor), that retails at Harbor Freight for about $125, but I got mine off of CL, New, still in the box for only $70.
I now crack my corn, mix it with a "Hog 40 concentrate", mixed to get the desired protein level I am shooting for. then put it all in an auto feed hopper (2 doors). Before this I was mixing the same (but whole corn) twice a day, and soaking in water for at least 24 hours, and then feeding the slop twice a day. I think this produced a slower growth rate, as now with the auto-feeder, they are eating more each day than before. 

I have done the math, and to get a pig from weaner size (30-40 Lbs) to slaughter (250 Lbs), will cost me about $78 for each pig. For me...... this is the ONLY way to make real money on pigs that I have to raise out to butcher weight. But I also sell weaner piglets from each litter. 

but I am sure others will disagree, and have a different way of doing it.......

terry


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## highlands

Interesting... There is research that a finer grind results in better digestion so maybe 2x through if it's course. Soaking also helps.

-Walter


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## cfuhrer

TnAndy said:


> Built a 12x22' room on the back of the garage, and part of that is a 6x6 cooler.


Jealousness ensues!

Very nice.


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## ihuntgsps

We just sold 3 and butchered 2 for ourselves this weekend. Bought them end of July. Total investment including buying the pigs and all feed was $217 per pig. 2 weighed 300 lbs and the other 3 were 230, 250,255. 
The largest one was a larger runt from a previous litter so had almost a month of age on the others.
Butchering a pig at home is fairly simple but I would not say it is easy.
2 hogs took us about 8 hrs to cut, grind sausage, and package. I have no doubt someone could do it much faster but we were being slow and making sure we got every bit we could.


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## TnAndy

ihuntgsps said:


> Butchering a pig at home is fairly simple but I would not say it is easy.
> 2 hogs took us about 8 hrs to cut, grind sausage, and package. I have no doubt someone could do it much faster but we were being slow and making sure we got every bit we could.


Yep....that's about how long it takes us too, including clean up. We're MUCH slower than a commercial operation, but we're retired, so time isn't much of an issue....saving money is. 

Thing about raising/butchering your own is it's NOT all just about the money. 

The quality of your meat is far better IMHO when your pig(s) is raised in a large enough area they can pasture as well as get feed. Plus you control other aspects of their diet. We raise some corn, pumpkins, and apples for ours.....they eat royally ! They live a much better life than hogs in confinement, and I like to believe they return our care with great meat.

The other thing to consider is the skills, tools and experience that go into home butchering and meat preservation. The day may well come when those are priceless to your family.


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## ihuntgsps

J.T.M you mentioned it took about 3.5 months and 550 lbs feed to get a 40 lb pig to about 285. I am trying to wrap my head around this.

I must be doing something very wrong. I put 4.5 months into mine and around 750 lbs of commercial feed into each plus pasture the entire time.

I figured pasture was helping me save some money but looks like that might be the variable costing me time (1 month) and extra feed cost (about 200 lbs).

Are most people able to get that rate of gain in 3.5 months with 550 lbs of feed? If so I hope to learn how so I can lower my costs next time around.

I am so happy this forum is available. Thank you for all the great tips/ideas!


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## oregon woodsmok

I've never been able to raise meat for cheaper than I can buy it. Except for maybe the rabbits if you don't count the cost of the equipment and shelter. I do it because the quality is so much better.

For your own personal freezer, I suggest that you buy a pig 100-150 pounds. It ought to cost somewhere around 60 cents a pound and will have a good head start on growing while it costs the same as a 25 pound weaner. Then you feed it like you want your meat fed. Pork is greatly affected by the diet. What you feed is what you get.

For just a couple of freezer pigs, your best purchase would be one of those pink commercial pigs. They are readily available and have excellent feed conversion.

The fancy expensive rare breed homestead pigs are for people who are interested in raising pigs for a specific purpose. If you aren't going to do anything with your pigs except to eat them, buy the cheaper commercial pigs. 

Do enough studying so that you know what a healthy piglet should look like and what sort of conformation produces the largest number of choice cuts.


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## oregon woodsmok

ihuntgsps said:


> ......I must be doing something very wrong. I put 4.5 months into mine and around 750 lbs of commercial feed into each plus pasture the entire time......


A couple of issues. Pigs in a large area burn calories by running around. Not a bad thing to exercise, but it does burn energy.

Commercial balanced pig food is designed to put growth on fast. Grass has much less feed value and it uses energy to both harvest it and digest it.

Did you de-worm?

When I raised a pig, I'd buy a half grown pig in the early fall and feed it windfall apples 50% of the diet. The rest of the diet was soaked grain and a balanced vitamin mineral pellet. They would grow a slower, but the apples were free and the meat turned out excellent. 

What breed of pig? Some have better feed conversion than others. I suspect that the breeds that are good grazers are not the best feed converters. None of my fast growing commercial bred pigs would eat grass or hay. They weren't bred to graze, they were bred to convert a little bit of grain into as much meat as possible.


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## highlands

oregon woodsmok said:


> I've never been able to raise meat for cheaper than I can buy it.


We're clearly doing things very differently you and I because my meat costs _far_ less to raise than what it would cost me to buy it in the store. On top of that the quality of my meat is far higher than most supermarket pork.

I don't buy grain, that's one big thing. 

I don't buy piglets, there's another big thing. 

I do my own butchering, there's another big thing. 

I figure that the above three are about 1/3rd of the cost each of getting pork to fork.

Pasturing is on land I already own and would own whether I had livestock or not so that's free. The water's free. The sunshine's free. As an added benefit I get fertilizer for my gardens - that's a big part of why I originally started raising livestock.

That leaves my labor, a little for fencing, etc as my primary costs. I raise a large volume so that helps. I farm rather than iFarm. That's what I do. Even back when I just raised a few for my family it was far cheaper (and better) than supermarket meat.



oregon woodsmok said:


> If you aren't going to do anything with your pigs except to eat them, buy the cheaper commercial pigs.


Unless you want quality and flavor...



oregon woodsmok said:


> Pigs in a large area burn calories by running around. Not a bad thing to exercise, but it does burn energy.


My pigs are out running around 70 acres doing rotational grazing and harvesting their own food. The little bit of energy they burn isn't an issue and it makes for better quality. This isn't the other white meat.



oregon woodsmok said:


> None of my fast growing commercial bred pigs would eat grass or hay.


It does take selecting for and learning. This is why line matters so much within a breed. Some lines have been selected for confinement with a grain diet. Some have been selected for show genetics. Some have been selected for pasturing. Use the right tool for the task. See:

http://sugarmtnfarm.com/2015/01/13/classic-large-white-sow/

-Walter


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## gerold

highlands said:


> We're clearly doing things very differently you and I because my meat costs _far_ less to raise than what it would cost me to buy it in the store. On top of that the quality of my meat is far higher than most supermarket pork.
> 
> I don't buy grain, that's one big thing.
> 
> I don't buy piglets, there's another big thing.
> 
> I do my own butchering, there's another big thing.
> 
> I figure that the above three are about 1/3rd of the cost each of getting pork to fork.
> 
> Pasturing is on land I already own and would own whether I had livestock or not so that's free. The water's free. The sunshine's free. As an added benefit I get fertilizer for my gardens - that's a big part of why I originally started raising livestock.
> 
> That leaves my labor, a little for fencing, etc as my primary costs. I raise a large volume so that helps. I farm rather than iFarm. That's what I do. Even back when I just raised a few for my family it was far cheaper (and better) than supermarket meat.
> 
> 
> 
> Unless you want quality and flavor...
> 
> 
> 
> My pigs are out running around 70 acres doing rotational grazing and harvesting their own food. The little bit of energy they burn isn't an issue and it makes for better quality. This isn't the other white meat.
> 
> 
> 
> It does take selecting for and learning. This is why line matters so much within a breed. Some lines have been selected for confinement with a grain diet. Some have been selected for show genetics. Some have been selected for pasturing. Use the right tool for the task. See:
> 
> http://sugarmtnfarm.com/2015/01/13/classic-large-white-sow/
> 
> -Walter


Thanks for taking the time to correct some things that have been miss understood by some.


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## krackin

I took 8 month feeders to process in Nov. with an average hang of 258 lbs. I took the rest that were sold 35 days later for an average hang of 330 lbs. These were random loadings to the processors. Last year I had about the same results with the same schedule. 

I give a non-medicated grain ration, allow grazing and rooting as desired and sweet corn finish if my planning is good. I try to calculate 16% protein at all times. Yes, this can be pricey if going all grain but is an easy way to calculate weight gain. 

You don't get meat without protein. The weight of protein fed out will give you insight to meat weight gain. If you feed high carbs, you need active hogs to burn the energy unless you are looking specifically for fat which is not a bad thing. It depends on what you want and need.


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## fishhead

I've heard of some people taking young wild hogs and penning them for a month or two. That is supposed to reduce the strong taste and help fill them out for butchering.

The year we raised hogs a friend raised some starting about the same time. We got ours up to 285 by fall and so did he but it took him about a month longer. He fed his scraps and green corn stalks and I think a smaller amount of pig feed.


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## highlands

Flavor's in the fat and comes from the feed. Breed (genetics) determines things like conformation characteristics, marbling rates, etc. So wild pigs raised on what you want to feed them should make them taste the way you're used to them tasting. Makes sense.

-Walter


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## momgoat

gibbsgirl said:


> That is info I would be very excited to have if anyone is able to share some.


I raise Mulefoot/Red Wattle crosses, they are known for their bacon, hams & lard. They get between 400-800 #s. They are docile, fatten up on mixed grain (COB or 3-way depending on where you are, which is wheat, corn & barley) but they also do good in pasture. I've been raising them for 5 yrs now, can't spit out the production prices the others can, but I can tell ya that a 400# on the hoof pig of ours can provide us enough meat to last us 2-3 mos of strictly eating pork (we've had to a couple times). They have a nice red meat, tasty on a grill or cooked in a cast iron pan or in the oven, never dry & is tasty without spices.
If you have a grain mill in your area, chances are you can get bulk grain (by 100 weight) cheaper than you can get purina, nutrena or any other brand in a bag. Or they'll sell it by the bag still cheaper then at your local tack/feed store.
our mobile butcher charges way less then others I saw posted here, like under 50 cents/pound cut & wrapped, extra for whatever we want smoked, but its still cheaper. But he's not USDA inspected.


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## momgoat

simi-steading said:


> Be careful with kids... they like to turn dinner into pets... I've got friends that have raised about 8 pigs now, and not one has been butchered or sold, as was planned..


I think it depends on how the kids are raised to begin with. I have 4 kids (young) & from the get go, they've been raised to know that our pigs, chickens & calf offspring(if a bull calf) will be for eating. They pigs & calves (we've only had 1 so far) get named & the kids have all agreed that even though they love their pigs, they are mighty tasty.
We just had one butchered last winter, we named Bob (same as my brother in law), but we sold off Koda & possum. Every time we have pork for dinner...its "Man, Bob sure is tasty, I wish we still had some Bob Bacon" LOL 
And my kids (along with me) are big animal lovers. They even help their grandparents out to help them to butcher meat chickens, 2 of my boys learned how to butcher them, while the other son & daughter gutted (they learned how to pluck before grandpa bought a chicken plucker LOL)
There was only one pig we owned (a boar) that I would have enjoyed the pleasure of killing, but I'm not keen on boar tainted meat, so we sold him. No love loss with that one.


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