Plowing with pigs....and worm farming?

[Beekissed]

I would say they are comparable but probably not top price in the spring, I don't know.

 

[prairiegirl]

Oh good, pigs. Another timely topic as my DH and I are nearing the end of our pig adventures. They will be going to the butcher in Feb.
We are in the midst of setting prices and all the other details. It would be easier if we were more business oriented.
We have fed ours grain, garden scraps, pumpkins, and plenty of fresh milk. As we are always looking for a deal, we found the pumpkins. There's a young man that plants pumpkins to sell for Halloween. We asked him what he was doing with all that was left in the field and he said we could have them for $5.00 a truck load. We got 2 heaping truck loads - what a sight as we drove home. A bonus, he threw in all the pie pumpkins he had left. It's all in the freezer for all those pies, cakes, muffins and breads. YUM!

Bee, I think you are on the right track using a pig to till. I've been reading alot about this lately. Only wish we could have gotten our pigs sooner this year for that very purpose.

Farmerchick, I think you are the expert in this area. Not to sound stupid, but 55 cents is live weight, correct?

As far as the electric fence, for us, we didn't want to chance it with pigs. We use the solar charger for our cattle fence, and we have a couple of cows that aren't bothered in the least with the zap. My DH had to beef up the grounding wires, I think it was.

 

[FarmerChick]

oh yes live weight

my sausage is $4 per lb.
pork chops is $5 per lb.

AND I am still one of the cheaper farmer market prices. most are higher than me.

there is money in them there piggies!
LOL

 

[Beekissed]

I'll just have to use an electric charger, I guess. I'd like to have both kinds, but if the solar won't contain sheep, it won't be much use to me. I'll just have to do some creative fencing.

I'd like to eventually do rotation grazing for the sheep, so as to improve the quality of my perennial grasses. I have pretty lush grass anyway, but Salatin says it will become even more nutritious and lush with proper grazing.

After I see how much feed my acreage will provide, I may keep a few of the ewe lambs and increase my flock. Same with the geese flock I'm getting.

 

[miss_thenorth]

Funky tasting meat from scraps: As these pigs will be hauled to the livestock market and sold to the highest bidder, I won't exactly be developing a customer base here. All folks who eat corn fed beef think grass fed beef taste "different" and not as good as what they are used to. Trust me, if you knew what they feed the pigs from the store, you might re-evaluate what you may be tasting! The pigs will be eating what humans put in their face every day without a second thought....but its not good enough for pigs????

All due respect here Beekissed. I guess it is a matter of ethics, but even though you are not developing a customer base, the pigs WILL taste different. If I were a consumer buying pork with the preconceived notion that is was grainfed pork ( expecting it to taste a certain way) and it didn't taste that certain way, I would be making a stink--not knowing why the meat tasted different. I would be calling the grocery store (or whoever)that I bought it at and complained. But you don't care b/c you don't know who's buying it? :/

Regardless of the fact that you say it is fed better because it is eating the same things as humans does not hold water for me. Humans don't always eat so well. And pigs need a certain amount of protein etc, that feed producers have put alot of research into.

I'm not saying that you shouldn't slop your pig--I'm just saying I don't think it is ethical to sell a slopped pig on the basis that you don't know who's buying it, so you don't care. I do plan on having pigs, and I do plan on slopping them, but I would have absolutely no intentions of selling that meat, esp without telling anyone how it was fed.

I realize these are just my opinions, and I also realize that you are going to do what you are going to do, but i just had to share my perspective.

 

[Beekissed]

Thank you for your view, miss! Its not unethical to feed a pig slop....we fed our own the same thing, people have been doing it for generations and its never been considered a bad thing from whence I come. I know the world has come to expect animals to be fed a certain thing according to their own idea of what is "good" or "healthy". All animals sold at a livestock auction are sold as is, unless otherwise specified. I've never been at an auction where the animals were herded in and the auctioneer started out with, "Now these cows/pigs have all been certified grain fed for your eating pleasure!"

Actually, I would be less inclined to eat an animal that was entirely corn fed. Feeding high corn diets changes the chemical composition of meat and makes it more of a carcinogen when consumed, from what I have read. If I were feeding a known toxin or animal byproducts to these pigs, I would feel I'd committed an ethical breach to the unsuspecting public. Its recycled lunch...not toxic waste or cow's brains here.

And pigs need a certain amount of protein etc, that feed producers have put alot of research into.

Feed producers did the research? The answer is in the question. Pigs have been raised for many years and tasted just fine before all the scientists got involved. I may just be old-fashioned here but meat used to taste so much better than it does now. When I try to describe to the boys how hamburgers used to taste, they can't even grasp it because they have only ever tasted the so-called meat served at schools and restuarants now.

Taste? Taste is not an ethics issue, it is a personal issue. If your "store bought" meat taste bad, you have every right to return it for a full refund, I'm sure. I wouldn't know, as I don't buy meat from a store.

with the preconceived notion that is was grainfed pork

This is the line that says it all....anyone having preconceived notions of how their meat was tenderly fed~ when buying from someone other than a trusted, local farmer~has already made a mistake. If I were selling to my neighbors or friends, I would definitely inform them of how and what these pigs were fed. Have you read any of the articles published lately on just WHAT is in your store bought meats????? I mean, eating antibiotics, hormones, injected preservatives and salts, and pumped-in gases to make the meat stay red long after it has started to decompose? And you find ME unethical????

Sorry, that dog won't hunt....

Out in the country we have always slopped our hogs, we will always slop our hogs and have even thrown in the occasional snake or groundhog!

 

[miss_thenorth]

I do not think slopping a pig is unethical. I simply have to question the fact that you are going to sell a pig that you KNOW is going to taste different, simply b/c you don't know or care who it is going to.

Who ever is going to eat it is not going to know why it tastes different. That's all I'm saying. I couldn't do it. But that's just me.

 

[MorelCabin]

The butchers who buy from the auctions finish them off thier way for a few weeks before slaughter anyway...at least that is my experience...so Bee doesn't have to worry about it.

 

[FarmerChick]

when hogs are sold at the sale barn, it is understood that you have no clue what has happened or been fed to that hog before it got there.

every buyer knows this.

When I started my business, we didn't raise hogs. We bought from the sale barn or a local hog farmer. Yup, we always noticed the taste difference between the sale hogs and the farm hogs. Sale hogs you never knew what type of taste was going to be....with Joe we knew they were grain fed only.........so after this, we decided to control our flavor ourselves and raise our own...which of course bloosomed up to alot of hogs..LOL.

if a customer comes to the house asking what is fed before purchase, then it is cool to say what they have been fed and that they were not just grain fed. That way they are informed.

If you tell an actual person they were grain fed only and they weren't, then the unethical kicks in......just rambling aobut it..LOL

 

[Beekissed]

Yep, that's my take on it! I don't normally eat pigs, haven't for many years, so I don't even know HOW they taste, as opposed to how folks THINK they should taste. Nor do I care!