Hog farmers

[Caustic Burno]

Does anyone raise Berkshire or Chester Whites any longer.
Grandpa used to have about 150 of them.

 

[skyhightree1]

Does anyone raise Berkshire or Chester Whites any longer.
Grandpa used to have about 150 of them.

I see a ton of pure berks and berk crosses but not many chester whites. All of mine are crossed but the duroc boar.

 

[City Guy]

I read up on Berks a year or so ago. Seems they are very popular in Japan where they are known as "The Black Pig". Most of US production goes there, I guess. Several of the articles mentioned that the meat of the Berk is red, like beef, not white! Is that true??

Trivia: The first hog ever registered with a breed association was a Berkshire boar owned by Queen Victoria.

 

[Clodhopper]

I've fattened off berks for the freezer, the meat was maybe a little darker. The problem with pork today is not enough fat. Throw them out on dirt, not concrete, feed them corn and soybean meal, not all this racehorse junk, let them be a hog. That's more important than anything for flavor, IMHO.

 

[slick4591]

There's a few Berkshire guys around here. One does it for show and the other sells an occasional pig to a restaurant that does a Berkshire special 2 or 3 times a year. CG is right about Japan. Very popular there. I did Chesters for a while a few years back. They made some decent Blue Butts.

 

[M-5]

We had them growing up ,
Hampshire, duroc, Chester, Berks, York's, landrace, Spots . Around a 1000 head total.

My g'ma was a breeding specialist with a 3rd grade education. Hogs were her specialty but was pretty dang good at managing 200 HD of cows and several hundred acres of row crops.

 

[skyhightree1]

The problem with pork today is not enough fat. quote]

If you want fat add unlimited milk and bread

 

[farmerjan]

Part of the desire for berks by the japanese is they actually do marble so the meat is more tender and has more flavor. They do tend to be a little darker, wouldn't make that "other white meat" classification too well..ha ha. Don't have any hogs now and I miss them but mostly had hamps and durocs. Found some chester whites at the Penn farm show in Jan several years back. And if you got any oaks, range those hogs on acorns, gives the meat a real great flavor.

 

[hurleyjd]

Any one of you remember the Sears and Roebuck Foundation that would give a Duroc Jersey gilt to a 4-H member the member had to write an essay. The member raised and had the gilt bred by a boar that was also furnished to a grown person in the community. Then a group of men in the community would pick a gilt from the members litter to pass on to the next 4-h member. I got one but did not write an essay because they had one and no one turned an essay that wanted it. The gilt grew pretty good and when about grown developed a rectal prolapse. She was slaughtered and eaten by the family.

 

[farmerjan]

One of the closeby counties does something similiar with poultry. The kids sign up to get chicks and they get them, from 5 to 25, and they have to raise them, keep 4-H records, show them at the fair and then donate a percentage back to be sold to fund the next batch of chicks for the next year. They had about 15 kids do it this year. The remainder of the poultry belong to the kids that raised them. They can sell them, or alot of them keep them for an egg flock and can sell the eggs and have eggs for the family. So many of the families in this area don't have the space for a calf so this gets the kids a start. Some do it one time and don't like the chickens, some kids go from there to goats or sheep or more. Never heard of the pig deal, pretty neat.

 

[hurleyjd]

One of the closeby counties does something similiar with poultry. The kids sign up to get chicks and they get them, from 5 to 25, and they have to raise them, keep 4-H records, show them at the fair and then donate a percentage back to be sold to fund the next batch of chicks for the next year. They had about 15 kids do it this year. The remainder of the poultry belong to the kids that raised them. They can sell them, or alot of them keep them for an egg flock and can sell the eggs and have eggs for the family. So many of the families in this area don't have the space for a calf so this gets the kids a start. Some do it one time and don't like the chickens, some kids go from there to goats or sheep or more. Never heard of the pig deal, pretty neat.

Grand son raised the chickens. He did not get any bids on his flock. One old man told him that he would take them off as hands for free. Any way I told the grandson that we would kill them and put in the freezer. I was wringing the chicken's neck and looked over and the grand son was throwing up. He woulds not touch any of the chicken when cooked.

 

[farmerjan]

One of the closeby counties does something similiar with poultry. The kids sign up to get chicks and they get them, from 5 to 25, and they have to raise them, keep 4-H records, show them at the fair and then donate a percentage back to be sold to fund the next batch of chicks for the next year. They had about 15 kids do it this year. The remainder of the poultry belong to the kids that raised them. They can sell them, or alot of them keep them for an egg flock and can sell the eggs and have eggs for the family. So many of the families in this area don't have the space for a calf so this gets the kids a start. Some do it one time and don't like the chickens, some kids go from there to goats or sheep or more. Never heard of the pig deal, pretty neat.

Grand son raised the chickens. He did not get any bids on his flock. One old man told him that he would take them off as hands for free. Any way I told the grandson that we would kill them and put in the freezer. I was wringing the chicken's neck and looked over and the grand son was throwing up. He woulds not touch any of the chicken when cooked.

Sorry to hear that your grandson didn't have a good experience. The chicks that the kids got were the sex-link pullets and at the sale after the poultry show, the pullets were averaging 10.00+ each. That's the going avg price here in this area. I am sure some of the kids just got some hard lessons about life with some of them being killed, but 2 of the seniors have done 50 a piece for the last 3 years and made some serious egg money and found sales for the older hens with "homesteader" types that want fat hens for soup birds. If you only get $2-5 for a stew hen shes still made you money if she laid eggs for a year. Some of the younger kids made a pet out of a hen or two and if it taught them nothing else, some responsibility of feeding and watering is good.

 

[Margonme]

My brother visited dad at the nursing home, Dad kept telling Rob to buy a couple shoats and raise them for the freezer. He had this life long idea that hogs are the best livestock profit-maker. He claimed when he got out of the service in 1944, he raised hogs on grandpa's farm. Said he made enough money in 6 years to buy his own farm. Then he got married and started milking cows. He always claimed getting married and not raising hogs was two of his biggest mistakes. Lol. Kidding of course. He worshipped mom.

Anyway, he convinced my brother to buy two shoats. Rob said by the time he got them in the freezer, he had $10 a pound in them. My brother and I just laughed, another one of dad's tales bit the dust.
:lol:

 

[backhoeboogie]

Does anyone raise Berkshire or Chester Whites any longer.
Grandpa used to have about 150 of them.

I used to could tell you several people raising hogs. Now I know of no one. Not one person.

Most of the breeders I knew ran Durocs. A friend used to provide crosses "Blue Butts" for kids in FFA and he doesn't do that any longer. CB I know of no one with hogs.

 

[hurleyjd]

If a person decided to raise some hogs where would you find a sale barn that would handle them.

 

[backhoeboogie]

If a person decided to raise some hogs where would you find a sale barn that would handle them.

Gainesville, TX is the closest one to me, that I am aware of. Seems like they do hogs on two Tuesdays a month but I could be totally wrong about that.

 

[pdfangus]

the hog industry is pretty near fully vertically integrated now....

the only market is the homesteader and organic consumers.

 

[skyhightree1]

If a person decided to raise some hogs where would you find a sale barn that would handle them.

My local sale barn is a great place to buy sheep goats and hogs... I buy my hogs from there they have 5x more hogs than they do cattle.

 

[skyhightree1]

the hog industry is pretty near fully vertically integrated now....

the only market is the homesteader and organic consumers.

Blackstone has a ton there at the sale.. They are cheap 77 bucks I think it was for a 250lb hog last week.

 

[Margonme]

If a person decided to raise some hogs where would you find a sale barn that would handle them.

Livestock stockyards (sale barn) in Kentucky provide a market for hogs.