Pigs - Raising Small Animals - page 246

*Source United States Department of Agriculture
Other parts of the pig are also used. Pig's ears, brains, kidneys and other organs, as well as
pig's feet and the pig's tail, frequently are found on the menus of chic restaurants these days.
Chitlins or chitterlings are an old-time Southern favorite. They are pig intestines and can be
served either as a stew or fried. Cracklins are fried pork rinds, or pig skin. The fat from your
pig can be used as lard. You can use virtually everything from your pig in the kitchen.
A pig that weighs 225 pounds will usually present you with about 75 percent of its body
weight as a dressing percentage, or 170 pounds of meat, bones, and fat after slaughter for the
carcass or hanging weight. Plan to be able to use about 60 percent of this weight as pork you
can eat or sell, or 102 pounds. The biggest part of this usable pork will be the ham, which usu-
ally accounts for about 23 percent of the carcass or about 23 pounds in this case. The side and
the loin areas will each make up about 15 percent of the carcass, or about 15 pounds each.
The picnic and the Boston butt from the shoulder will each account for about 10 percent of
the carcass weight, or 10 pounds each; the miscellaneous parts, such as the feet, the jowls, the
skin, the fat, and the shrink , or the amount of weight loss due to urination and defecation,
will account for about 25 percent of the carcass weight, or 25 pounds in this case.
There will be some small variation in the amount of lean pork and fat from your pigs depend-
ing on whether they are gilts or barrows. Gilts usually produce more lean pork than carcasses
from barrows of the same weight.
After processing
After processing, you will need to pick up your meat from the butcher within a day or two,
depending on the butcher's refrigeration storage capacity. Naturally, you will need to make
sure you take iced freezer chests with you to transport the pork, particularly the uncured pork
such as shoulder, loin cuts, and any miscellaneous parts. You will need to have good freezer
storage capabilities at home in order to store the pork, especially if you have pork from sever-
al pigs, and you intend to sell some of it.
If you will be selling some of the pork for retail sale, carefully inspect the packaging at the
butcher's facility before taking it home to make sure the packaging is what you requested.
Slaughtering at Home