Pot bellied pigs taste NICE!!!

[GBov]

And dress out really well!

Just processed a 40 pound, four month old, boar and got 25 pounds of prime cuts.

Both back legs are going into a Wiltshire cure to turn into lovely hams and the front leg/ribs slab shall be roasted with garlic. Yummmmmy!

Not counting the head and trotters that are simmering away for stock that is a nice amount from such a little pig. And being that small I could process it myself, even scalding it, in the kitchen.

One more boar still to do and three sows preggers for mid spring. Might be keeping a few more of them this time for meat instead of selling most of them as pets.

And the flavor of PBP pork is out of this world FANTASTIC!!!

 

[ladysown]

I've heard that from others as well.

Glad you enjoyed him.

 

[dayna]

I sure wish I could raise pigs. Someday, I have to build a pen first. There are lots of wild pigs here that people trap the babies and sell them off for $10/each that I could raise up. Till then I'll covet your stories!

 

[GBov]

I sure wish I could raise pigs. Someday, I have to build a pen first. There are lots of wild pigs here that people trap the babies and sell them off for $10/each that I could raise up. Till then I'll covet your stories!

Pigs are not that hard to contain but they sure are strong! At $10 each you should do yourself one, it can eat all your scraps and then eat it when it starts getting strong enough to escape from what you have it in. Even pallets can be screwed into a nice strong pen.

I kept our boar (all 60 pounds of him :lol: ) in a fattening pen made from an old bed spring, two pallets and two pieces of lattis all wired together. No gate as the only way he was coming out was dead so all I had to do was bend over the edge to fill his food and water dish. He was only in it 2 weeks but he seemed perfectly happy.

CL has deals on old dog kennels quite often round here, that is what my girls are in now in fact, an old dog yard.

Have FINALLY found a way pig liver is not only nice, but VERY nice indeed!

I made my kids a totally rubbish meal - once in a blue moon kind of dinner - of chili dogs and, as I didn't fancy any, I thought I would try sliced pig liver rolled in seasoned (cyan, ginger, paprika, white pepper, garlic and salt) flour and fried really fast in organic shortening and see if I liked it.

So got out the LITTLE frying pan and started it. By the time the small amount of test liver was done the kids had abandoned their dinner and were hovering to taste mine.

Long story short, ALL of the sliced pig liver and kidneys were eaten up by three kiddiewinks and I got two frying pans - small and large - to wash and got to have a bowl of black eyed peas for dinner. :shock:

The remaining pigs will get the remains of the kids actual dinner for tomorrows feed. It will come back as pork and I will NOT do a meal like that for the kids again unless I join them eating it. But sometimes I just don't want to cook from scratch and chili dogs are USUALLY a favorite!

Eldest son told me "It was alright until we tasted some REAL food!" :lol:

 

[dayna]

How much are you having to feed them per day? Like realistically? I don't usually have much in the way of scraps but guava and papaya I can harvest or purchase cheaply.

 

[GBov]

How much are you having to feed them per day? Like realistically? I don't usually have much in the way of scraps but guava and papaya I can harvest or purchase cheaply.

I buy a bag of the cheapest hog food I can buy - $7 a 50 pound bag - and top up their food so the 3 gallon can I toss all my scraps into is full.

Today they got butchering scraps, plate scrapings from three meals, the heal end of a loaf of bread gone a bit moldy, all the spud and carrot pealings and about three pounds of hog food.

When all three sows gave me five piglets each, the feed bill got a bit bigger than I was happy with but now we are down to 5, it nothing to feed them really.

You can tell at a glance if its not enough food, they get thin and loose their jowls. A jowly pig is a happy pig! :lol:

Once I kill the last spare boar I will have to cut the food back a bit, the girls are looking a little porky already.

Go on, you know you want too!
.

 

[ilovehome]

Fascinating...never would have thought of using them for this purpose. Now my wheels are spinning...with just the hubs and I here, this might be a perfect option for us. Hmmmm...think I will check craigslist...

 

[michaels4gardens]

I used to raise all kind of pigs, -- Pot bellied pigs are much more feed efficient then "regular" pigs, especially when fed a lot of garden waste, and plant material, -- and --they have more body fat then modern pigs, -- and they are "very yummy"

 

[dayna]

I did a quick check. I can buy a 50# bag of hog feed for about $15-$20 (and that's the cheap stuff).

Can they eat ANY kitchen scraps? Like stuff I'd toss into the compost like egg shells? What about bones? Do they need extra fat in their diet? I could probably toss coconuts to them for that. And guava for carbs/sugar. Hmmmmmm Wonder where I could put a pig pen that hubby won't freak out? hehe

 

[GBov]

I did a quick check. I can buy a 50# bag of hog feed for about $15-$20 (and that's the cheap stuff).

Can they eat ANY kitchen scraps? Like stuff I'd toss into the compost like egg shells? What about bones? Do they need extra fat in their diet? I could probably toss coconuts to them for that. And guava for carbs/sugar. Hmmmmmm Wonder where I could put a pig pen that hubby won't freak out? hehe

Mine get all the egg shells (and eggs broken by the kids :roll: ), all peelings, any fat skimmed off stock and soup, paper towels soaked in fat if I used them for that, any and all plate scrapings and, really, anything that isn't a bone. Hmmm, I tell a lie, I give them boiled pig skulls once we pick the meat from it and that's bone. They make short work of them too!

Pigs smell strong but, if kept dry and there is only one or two, the smell isn't too bad. Let the pen turn into a quagmire and it becomes a loathsome smell!

Heheheee I am an enabler! But at $10, how can you NOT give it a try?

 

[TwoAcreDream]

One of my son's raises pot belly pigs. They get $ 50 each for the babies
as pets. I know he said they ate one, once, but it was not one they
themselves had raised. He said it was good.

How do you feed them bones ? I would think pressure cooking them
would be a good idea to soften them up some.

 

[GBov]

One of my son's raises pot belly pigs. They get $ 50 each for the babies
as pets. I know he said they ate one, once, but it was not one they
themselves had raised. He said it was good.

How do you feed them bones ? I would think pressure cooking them
would be a good idea to soften them up some.

I would think pressure cooking bones would be great for them! Not having one my piggies only get the really soft bones, like boiled chicken backs. I had a boar choke on a bone once and it made me a bit worried about them. He was fine but he coughed for days on it.

We sell the bright piglets for $45 each and eat the black ones that don't sell. The money from the one pays for the feed for all the rest. Win Win!

 

[BlueMoods]

You're right, any bones can be pressure cooked, then pureed in a blender or, as I prefer a Ninja, then fed to dogs, cats, pigs, even chickens that way. I feed broth and all, they get all of the nutrition form the bones that way.

 

[ckcs]

This sparked an interest until I looked at prices locally on craigslist. Most were around $200. There were a couple for cheap though so no doubt I could get one pretty cheap if I waited. Seems dumpster diving and a pig would be a perfect marriage.

 

[GBov]

This sparked an interest until I looked at prices locally on craigslist. Most were around $200. There were a couple for cheap though so no doubt I could get one pretty cheap if I waited. Seems dumpster diving and a pig would be a perfect marriage.

Keep looking, it sounds like you have a lot of tea cup pot bellies in your area. They are really expensive, the poor little things. You should be able to find actual PBP if you just keep at the hunt.

Its nice to have a reason to trawl CL, isn't it? :twisted: