Saturday, May 10, 2014

2014 Pork Purchase Breakdown

We purchased another hog from Country Pride Meats in Clinton this spring.  They again ran a special in conjunction with their customer appreciation day.  This year the price was $1.85/lb (based on hanging weight) for the basic cuts and smoking of hams and bacon.  The price was $.10/lb higher than last year and this year there was an additional charge if you wanted any sausage or smoking of hocks and such.  We just had them do the basic and left our ground pork plain.  This will mean I get to make our sausage exactly how I want it!

The break down this year:

Ham (have these cut in half) 4 packs, 20lbs
Ham Steaks                         4 packs, 8 lbs
Bacon                                 12 packs, 12 lbs
                                            3 packs, 4 lbs
Pork Steaks                        14 packs, 12.5 lbs  (next year these should be packed 2 to a pack)
Pork Chops                         17 packs, 19.5 lbs
Loin Roasts                            2 packs, 9 lbs (were supposed to be 3 lbs each, but not a big deal)
Shoulder Roasts                     4 packs, 13 lbs
Ground Pork                         21 packs, 21 lbs
Jowls                                      2 packs, 4.5 lbs
Hocks                                     4 packs, 10 lbs
Country Ribs                           1 pack, 4 lbs
Spare Ribs                              2 packs, 6 lbs
Liver                                       3 packs, 3 lbs

I didn't ask for the fat as we have lots of lard and even a sack of fat to render in the freezer (from some friends.)  The pork liver is something we've never tried, but I figure we'll feed it to the dogs if nothing else. 

146.5 lbs of take home meat, 191 lbs hanging weight, which means we had a conversion of 76.7% this year.  That is fantastic!  I'm not sure if I was generous with weights or if there was just a great conversion on this big, but we are happy with it.  Even with the slight price increase we actually came in with a better price based on take home meat.  It turned out to be $2.41/lb, which I think is pretty amazing for great pork that supported a local farmer, a local butcher and means we have a year's worth of pork.  With the things I've heard about the virus wiping out baby pigs I'm sure pork is going to be increasing in a big way this year.  I'm also glad to have our beef for the next year and a half in the freezer too as I've heard crazy increases are coming in the beef world too.  I've got 15 little chicks that are hopefully going to be in the freezer in about 6-7 weeks too.  And if all goes well in raising them I'll raise another group in the fall, which should pride us enough chicken for the year.  We'll be getting hens in less than  week too, hopefully!  So the egg production is coming in house as well....making strides!



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