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9:20 pm
Senior Class
New members
Mon 9-Aug-10
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Our first pigs have been slaughtered and butchered and are now filling our freezer.
They were slaughtered on Tuesday and butchered today - we went along to watch them be butchered. It was fascinating.
We now have a freezer full of meat - two whole pigs. I am going to have a go at dry curing a leg of pork and also some belly pork and wet curing a leg of pork.
We haven't tasted any yet as ironicly this afternoon we have been to our local pub for the landlords birthday - a hog roast!!!!!!
The meat looks fantastic and I am really looking forward to tasting it.
9:52 pm
Supreme Being
Thu 24-Sep-09
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That is really interesting and encouraging to hear. A group of us are soon to take delivery of our first four pigs. Fencing is on order, all legal thingies are covered and their home is soon to be built. We are very excited about this project and it is good to hear of your success. What kind of pigs did you have? Ours are Tamworths and I think they are about two months old now.
Old teachers never die, they just lose their class
9:02 am
Expert
New members
Fri 8-Oct-10
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Last year we got 3 piglets from a friend, electric fencing the whole lot, but the little b*****s kept escaping. No idea how they were getting out. After 3 days we had to give them back cos it was our farmer down the road who kept bringing them back. Our other neighbours were phoning him cos none of them speak English to tell us, and he kept having to leave his work to bring them back! He was great and just said pas de probleme every time. Hope u have better luck.
3:32 pm
Senior Class
New members
Mon 9-Aug-10
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Our friends had two Tamworths and we had one Middle White and one Gloucester Old Spot/Berkshire X.
This afternoon I have salted my belly pork to make bacon and hubby is just building me a wooden box to salt the leg in - we hadn't got anything big enough!!!
I also got a bag of bones out of the freezer to make a stock.
Having the first taste tonight - 2 pork chops from each of our breeds to see if they taste any different.
Ours were just kept in with electric fencing and we didn't have any problems with them escaping but maybe we were just lucky. We had the fencing pretty low when they were small and then moved it up as they got bigger. Once they had had a couple of shocks from it they stayed well away.
9:35 pm
Sat 12-Aug-06
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I bet your bacon will be super, Debih. Congrats on seeing it through and I hope you enjoy your bounty.
Just being curious - did your butcher return every single part of the animals, or did he retain some odds and ends?
Never knowingly underfed
12:55 pm
Senior Class
New members
Mon 9-Aug-10
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There was very little waste Danny. It was helpful going along to see them be butchered as we could talk to the butcher about the cuts we wanted and he gave us tips about what to do with certain cuts.
The pigs were already halved and hanging when we arrived - this is done at the abbatoir to remove the back bone. The offal had been removed (apart from the kidneys) and was all mixed up together (all four pigs) in a separate bag.
I would say that all that was thrown away in total from all four pigs was about half a washing up bowl (if that) full of rind. We brought all the bones home to make stocks with - I am just about to put my stock pot on in a minute, any scraps of meat and fat (which there was very little of) went into bowls to be made into sausages (the sausages come home today).
From the offal bag we had two livers and two hearts - we didn't want the lungs or anything else. I am not sure what our friends had from it but I would guess the same as us. Next time I intend to have the blood to make black pudding.
10:04 pm
Sat 12-Aug-06
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That's fair enough, Debih - I cannot imagine using the lungs etc! 
Back in the 60s, my mum used to make brawn from the bits that are now commonly discarded. Different times, I guess.
Never knowingly underfed
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