I have come to the conclusion that I hate pigs.

[magicpigeon]

Me too.

I loathe pigs...

 

[cassie]

Quote:
Or not. I am real bad about estimating the live weight of hogs. I can estimate cattle within about five pounds one way ot the other, but when it comes to hogs, forget it. The last one I had butchered when I thought he weighed 250 pounds. He dressed out at 250 pounds so I guess I missed it a bit. The meat was fine but one pork chop was enough for two people and the hams were enormous.

 

[Lothiriel]

Right. We haven't been able to get a good estimate. Every time we tried, we'd weigh them each at least twice, and each time it would be a drastic difference. (We were using the hog weigh tape.) So our last guesstimate was around 230-ish, and that was about 2 weeks ago. Pigs are so hard to weigh...They never stand still or in the right position to get a coreect measurement!

 

[StevenW.]

I luuurved my pig when I had him. His name was PorkChop...

 

[capayvalleychick]

I love my pigs!

They'll follow a bucket anywhere. Course, I've never loaded them in a pick up. We put them in dog crates to transport them. They are Guinea Hogs.

I did see an interesting way to move large pigs. You bend a wire panel into a circle, place it over the hogs and walk them where they need to go.

Best of luck with your pigs! The madder they make you, the better they'll taste! That's what I say about my steers!

Kim

 

[EmAbTo48]

We LOVE our pigs!!! But then again we have had them since piglets! We breed and sell off there piglets at 40lbs. We have yorkshire! They love us so much! They love to follow us and never hurt any of our other animals! Even the boar is a softy! Our sow is a great mom!

So we never had to load them up, but the 40lbs babes yes but we have a trailer!

 

[Saltysteele]

hogs do put out some heat. i grew up on a large scale hog farm, so i know a bit about them. my dad and uncle just sold it a year and a half ago, but my brothers and i managed it for the company that was leasing the buildings, for about a year or so after. in all of our grower and finishing houses, we did not have heaters and it was still high 70's to 80's in the coldest of winter (near zero F). if the power went out and the fans (pit and wall) were not running in the summer, the temp would go from 80's to 100's in a matter of 5 minutes. just recently, lightning struck and took out the warning/monitoring system and power to one of the barns that held 450 pigs. half an hour later (when it was discovered), there were less than 50 still alive. the automatic generator (capable of powering a city block) turned on, but the circuit panel was fried. pigs do put out quite a bit of heat.

size and age are not necessarily positive indicators that they are going to be tough and all fat. after they reach a certain age, you can stop feeding them "grower" rations and start with maintenance-sized rations. they will still grow, but not as quickly and not develop as much fat.

even if they do have a bunch of fat on them, it is easily trimmed off by your butcher. there will just be more waste. at a certain point you reach a stage where you're putting more money into them than you're going to get back out. but, on a small scale, it is not a catastrophe if they don't make market in a weeks time. you get 5, 10, 20 thousand hogs, and yes, you need to get them out before you loose your booty.

knowing hogs, though, i think it would be a mistake to leave them in the back of a pickup with any pickup topper that i've seen. they don't sit still and twiddle their thumbs when they get bored

 

[Mac in Wisco]

It's been 25 years since I've had anything to do with a pig, but I used to help slaughter at my grandfather's small farm. We didn't try to round then up. We'd put a hog or two down in the pen, bleed them out, hang them from gambrels on the loader arms of the tractor, and dress them out. Grandma would scurry away with the heart, liver, and tongue and go fry herself a tongue sandwich for lunch. We then wrapped the carcasses in canvas, put it in the pickup truck, and took them to the local butcher shop. We'd do the the same with the cattle.

It was a family gathering every fall to do this. My grandparents had six children and all of their families would come and help. After they were delivered to the butcher, they were Christmas gifts to the families from my grandparents, usually a whole hog or a side of beef or some combination and the families would pick them up from the butcher shop when they were ready.

 

[Saltysteele]

Quote:
just respect their size, strength and mood changes. we've had sows that were friendly, and we've had sows that would take your head off if they were able (and tried). your boar is also a bomb of testosterone; be careful. my dad raised hogs for 40 years, but that still didn't stop a boar from ripping an 8" gash 2" deep into the inside of his thigh. he will get bigger and bigger and bigger, and get less and less "soft"

we had a montana duroc boar that when taken to market was 863 pounds scraped both sides of a cement walkway 36" wide, and was around 4 foot tall at the arch of his back. had no problem jumping up and resting his upper body on 4" cement walls.

 

[Lothiriel]

Yay!! They're gone!! Funny thing is, even though they hated getting into the truck, they just as much hated getting out! My dad took them in this morning (obviously they didn't die of heatstroke) and Dottie planted her front feet and fought getting out, and Stubby planted her bottom on the truck bed and fought getting out. Silly pigs... They'll taste real good though.