Our First Pork

We picked our pig up from the butcher shop this weekend.  I was so excited when I got the phone call that it was ready that it was hard to not jump in the car right then and go get it.  David reminded me we'd waited 3 weeks, one more day wouldn't kill me.  I wasn't so sure about that, but turns out he was right. 

We got a ton of meat back.  We got 18 1lbs of bacon, 14 lbs of sausage (Sage, Sweet Italian, and Maple), 2 packs of spare ribs, 20 packs of scrapple, 2 Boston butts, 14 packs of chops (4 per pack), 1 whole ham, 2 small ham roasts and 6 center ham slices (from the other ham),  2 packs of hocks, 2 packs of feet/ankles, a pack of ears (for the dogs?), and 2 bags of fat for lard. 

The kids took turns posing with the ham because it was so big. 

We decided to grill up some chops for dinner, for our first taste. They were great!

And this morning we had tried the bacon and scrapple. 

The bacon was delicious.  We're already making rules on what meals are "bacon worthy."  We've decided if bacon gets added to anything, it'll be purchased bacon.  Our home grown bacon is for eating whole only!

Our breakfast:  eggs from our chickens and bacon and scrapple from our pig!    Have you ever had scrapple?  Scrapple is a combination of scraps of meat and seasonings and often corn meal is added. It looks like it might be the texture of sausage, but it is very soft. It's not my first choice for breakfast meats, but it's pretty good I guess.  I like mine sliced very thinly and cooked until crispy.  David likes his thicker and crispy on the outside and soft on the inside.  I think we have enough scrapple to last us a lifetime, since we don't eat a ton of it.  I guess we'll eat more of it now.

Our pig was 200 lbs hanging weight, which means she was probably between 250-300 lbs live weight.  I'm not sure exactly how many pounds of meat we got back...I'm guessing around 140-150 maybe?  The bill for her processing was $172.20.  There was a $15 kill fee, plus $.60/lb for fresh meat and another $.60/lb for the cured meat (bacon and ham).  I need to figure out how many bags of feed we bought for her, and then I can come up with a rough estimate of how much per pound the meat cost us.  I know it was definitely worth it. 

We still have the 2 smaller pigs, and one will be BBQed very soon.  Looks like we'll be selling the second one, which will help offset the cost of the big pig.  I really enjoyed raising the pigs. I'm not sure if we'll raise another pig next year or if we'll take a break for a year.  I'm leaning towards taking a break.  They're great to raise, but I'm looking forward to cutting back on my chores a bit!