Apologies to my most sensitive readers, but this is another piece that deals frankly with the life cycle on a farm. You have been warned.
With 625 pounds of freshly butchered pork cut into quarters, beer in the fridge and pizza ready for the oven, sharp knives and meat saws on the tables, we went to work.
It can surely be said that the small farmer is more intimately involved with life’s cycles than the average citizen. The observations of birth, life, death, all harvested into good meals from countless livestock, leaves the practitioner with no illusion of his permanence on this green land.
We bought a sow back in February of this year. She arrived in the usual manner, from another farmer who had gotten in over her head with pigs. The owner couldn’t sell what the breeding stock produced, and she couldn’t afford to keep and feed their offspring. For the small farmer, raising out hogs is a chancy business. Unlike for cattle, there is no real market at the stockyard, so if the animals are sent that route, they bring a pittance for the substantial investment of time, money, and effort. Pork, on the small farm, is all about the direct marketing of the meat to a customer.
This particular sow arrived pregnant, due within the month. The seller had become desperate at the prospect of 6-12 new piglets arriving even before the last litter had been sold. This is often where we find the margin to make a small profit on our farm; it’s the classic adage of buy low and sell high. We paid $100 for this sow and picked her up from a small acreage on the Cumberland Plateau.
Mere weeks after her arrival, she gave birth to six piglets. Eight weeks later, we sold three of the weanlings to two customers to raise out for their own freezers. Those three brought in $120, which covered our initial expense. Between the sow’s temperament and her conformation, we chose not to keep her. Instead, we took her to the abattoir and had her ground into sausage, much of which we then sold — one of the many clear-eyed decisions a farmer has to make daily.
The first of November, nine months after their birth, our three hogs were sold as pork to customers. The average hanging weight of each hog was 275 pounds. We trailered them to the packinghouse on a Tuesday and picked up the packaged meat on Friday. The customers drove to the farm, then paid for and left with their pork by late afternoon.
Last week the friends/customers who had bought two weanlings from us in the spring had them slaughtered. Those few extra weeks of feeding boosted the hanging weights to a 312.5-pound average, which, circle back around to the reason newcomers get into trouble with pigs: they just keep growing and eating until they go in the freezer.
Our friends elected to save money and do the final processing of the carcasses into cuts. Now, that is a lot of meat to process! They asked for assistance and we were happy to oblige. Mind you, none of us is a skilled butcher, but we do have a working knowledge of the parts and various cuts of the carcass, and within four hours we had a tidy pile of loins, tenderloins, ribs, assorted roasts, and ham steaks; two hams and four sides for curing; lots of trimmings for grinding into sausage; and vast quantities of bones, fatback, and leaf lard. We paused only once, for the pizza and beer, before finishing up and heading home.
The small-farm return on investment is simple, in this instance: One sow produced enough meat for approximately 12 families to eat well for one year. And there, my friends, is a crash course in small-farm economics — food produced at scale for a knowable audience.
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Reading this weekend: Irish Journals (W. Berry)
Brian,
I don’t mean to throw any shade in your direction, but you bring up an excellent point: Your ability to complete this successful pork operation began with buying the original hog dirt cheap.
It’s the same in our small farm situation. We survive by using other people’s 50 year old cast-off machinery, that some poor guy sold for pennies on the dollar. And we are forced to fix it ourselves. What small farmer can afford 90 dollars an hour for a mechanic? Meanwhile the cost of parts has skyrocketed recently. Thank God there is no inflation/sarc.
The situation is no better for the big guys. The 3 biggest “dairy farms” in our community have all declared bankruptcy. They stiffed many local creditors but are still in business, pumping milk into an already flooded market. I once thought that capitalism meant the most efficient producers would survive, but now know it is the people who have access to seemingly unlimited amounts of credit. They must be “To Big To Fail”.
My son would love to continue the farming legacy here, but can make much more money, and societal respect, doing almost anything else.
Sorry for the farm economics rant this morning. Getting older and tired of working for little reward and no respect this snowy morning.
Hot Rod,
No worries on the shade, we are certainly aware that some of our chances at profit come at the expense or ignorance of others. But, our model for pork works most of the time even when we buy weanlings. It is just not a model that would provide a full time income, which gets back to your gloomy point.
Sigh,
If I may so intrude Professor Small Farm – how much does the abattoir charge for services? Is killing and cleaning (no butchery) charged per head or per pound? Sausage making goes per pound I’d guess. Transportation is on you.
Abattoir allowed to sell any meat on their own? I’m thinking in terms of barter here.
Clem,
The kill charges are per animal/processing based on either live or hanging weight (varies per processor). Nut, those charges are paid by our customers.
Cheers,
So it saves a wee bit when finishing to a higher weight? And saves more if you can cut up the carcass with the help of your friends (esp. if beer and a pizza are payment). And naturally the camaraderie is a fine added benefit. Bandages extra.
Have you been using the smoke house much?
Alas, no, always something else going on that takes the time and attention. However, I’m finishing up a ham in the curing chamber. I may throw some smoke on it, now that you have reminded me.
Thanks,
Hey Brian, thanks for the thoughtfully written and informative edition this month!