What are the average hog prices in your area? Looking at a 400 lbs. hog pick up live at the farm.

Not sure, but that is a big piggy!

Usually about 6 Bud lights and a cheeseburger from the bar. From the farm no extra except a few miles further

We bought a 150# pig from a guy for $25. He wasn’t too happy when I pulled out the .45 and popped it between the eyes. In fact he said if he’d known I was gonna kill it he wouldn’t have sold it to me. It was much easier to load up dead and it going to be in the ground cooking within a matter of hours. Had a big dove hunt the next day and needed meat and I was in charge of bringing the meat. It was some fine eating too.

I have 2 cousins in Illinois who are in the hog biz. 400 is a pretty big hog compared to the usual weight they sell at. They sell hundreds a year so they sell on a contract. Don' t know what price they currently get.
mt

At 400 lbs your probably paying for a lot of back fat . For the freezer I like them 220-240.

Around 150 to 175 dollars.

If I had free pork but had to have these confinement houses to get it you wouldn't have pork to eat ….whewwwww

What the heck did else did the guy expect you to do with it? Marry it?

We are going to grind the entire hog for sausage. Except the loins and we will probably eat most of those during the processing. I was told a 350 to 400 lbs. hog was the best lean to fat ratio for whole hog suasge. I really don't mind a little fat left over to grind with deer etc. but I don't want my breakfast sausage too lean.

A 400 lb what? Sow, boar, etc...
Whatever it is, it's well past normal butchering weight and fair market price will be far less than a normal market hog. Only one on the local report at that weight (over 300), a boar that sold for $6/CWT. That would be $24.

Hahaha!

Is your hog a sow or boar?

I always kill my meat hogs right where you said.220-240 lbs.After that,your just growing fat.

I buy literal tons of meat for resale to a pet food manufacturer, who grinds it up whole. In cool and cold weather, I prefer to cull on pick up, but I always ask permission first. I also sell lots of livestock here on my farm. I would be ticked too if someone pulled out a gun on my property and shot anything, without asking first. When they ask, I have no problem letting them kill here, but due to the mess, I don't let them butcher here.

I bought a 400 some pound sow last year for $200.00, which included delivering it to the butcher. I have a market sized hog going in, in February, that I traded $200.00 in credit towards 3 goats for.

You can buy cheap oversized hogs at livestock auctions. You should be able to find the auction results for your local auctions online.

One of the Kentucky auction sites is:

https://www.bgstockyards.com/sales-info/market-report

At 40 cents a pound a 400 pound hog would be $160.00. The oversized sows in those reports mostly sold for 40 cents a pound.

Private sales are probably a little higher. If you watch Craigslist, you may be able to get a really cheap hog.

Keith

Just butchered 2 250 lb hogs two weeks ago. Paid .72 cents a lb live weight. A neighbor paid .65 cents but bought it at a sales barn and has no idea how or what it was fed. Ours where from a 4H project so we know they where well taken care of.

I was going to buy a sow. I talked to a guy today that has some and he wants $0.90 a pound. That seemed really high. But they are fed to be meat hogs and guaranted free of shots and healthy. He said most of his are at the 350 lbs. mark right now.

My 10 year old son sells hanging hogs for 2.75 a lb hanging weight. Usual hanging weight is 200 to 250 lbs. beautiful pork. Lil guy is richer than dad! Lol

That's a good deal..72 cents live is about a buck a pound hanging and that's a great deal these day if,,like you said you know what went into the pig.

I've got a 400+ pound sow that you can have if you just come get her! No time to butcher her and she won't bring the gas money it will take to get her to an auction. I'm sick of feeding her. Last I checked around here oversized hogs were bringing pennies a pound at the closest auction and that is over 100 miles from me.

If I were near you I would take that offer.I make lots of sausage,and also love good pig lard.Best pie crust in the world is made with pig lard.

Pick me up on your way and we'll split it.

I have a couple questions for you guys then

The cheap, oversized hogs - are they ok for grinding into sausage still? Why don't people buy those huge ones for ground pork/sausage if they are so cheap?

If you buy from the livestock auction, is it possible that you pay 65c and get a butcher hog that was fed trash ,carcasses, and 'coon fat? Could you end up inadvertently buying an inedible hog because someone was using it to dispose of skinned carcasses?

Lard makes great cookies too. Lard is better for you than all the vegetable oils except maybe olive oil. We use lard almost daily.

Keith

You got that right Keith! Im not a big sweet eater,,but give me a pie made with a lard crust and get out of my way!! LOL

We have four that are going to butcher on 16th we get 2.35 hanging weight, 220 to 240 dressed weight is just right.

Last time I checked around here, it was around 75 cents a pound, live weight. I need to start looking, I'll be in the market for a 300 pounder in a month or so

Just because he recently divorced it doesn't mean he wanted it killed.

Funny thread.

I am sure the cheap oversized hogs would be okay for grinding or they would not be allowed to be sold. I think it would be near impossible to feed a hog any sort of meat and make it taste bad.

I think only a very small proportion of Americans know how to butcher any animal. It's much easier to buy meat already butchered and processed and it saves time and prevents a mess. Most Americans are very adverse to getting dirty and fairly lazy now.

Transporting a live, huge hog is not easy, unless you have the equipment for it. Even transporting a large dead hog is hard without help, and a truck or trailer. Winches are useful too for huge dead hogs.

Keith

we would mix a sow with 3 225 to 250lb hogs for sausage

If you pulled something like that at my place,you would be sad.

We just butchered a 340 lb dead gilt almost ready to be a sow........it cost me the effort and time to get her loaded off the dead cart. She had a heart attack in the barn and neighbor called. He knows we process our own meat and didn't want to compost her. 20 minutes in Insta Pot and her ribs were delicious........any commercial barn will have hogs die often of natural causes and they are just fine for eating. You just have to be willing to do a little work..........

Should add, we raised quite a few berks the last few years and I never sold them under a dollar a lb live weight. We are a small dirt operation and it is worth that to me to not sell a finished pig cheap.

Thats high for even a market hog. Its crazy high for a 350 lb hog. Once they’re that big the price drops off real fast.

On a hog that size, you’ll pay more for the butcher than the hog itself. As stated above,sows are really cheap and boars are almost worthless once they hit a certain weight. Sausage will be just fine from that sow and the loins should be good just a little tougher than normal. (Just cook them a little longer). Boars are a whole other kettle of fish. I had a friend that used to swap boars with me from time to time. He had one he was finished with so he sent it to the sale barn. About a week later he got a bill in the mail😂

Exactly...too big for my taste

You have pigs? Or not allowed to carry up there?

She's here for the taking upstateNY. Swing by and pick up Ol catch22 and head this way! I'll put a pot of stew and a pot of coffee on and both will be hot when you get here lol! I've tried multiple times to give this hog away and have even had people come to get her and then leave without her because they didn't realize how big she actually was and had no way to handle a hog that size. I have even offered to shoot her and load her in someone's pickup with my tractor and got no takers. I would butcher her myself like I did the one that came with her but I ran out of time and freezer space.

Oh man, Davis, if you were only closer!!! We'd have a good time and I guarantee you'd be rid of that hog. That is a very generous offer!

And Wanna Be, it's a matter of respect and common courtesy. It's not cool to whip out and fire a gun on someone else's property without there permission.

I love this story .

LOL.

Other than meat what else are hogs in KY raised for? .90 is way to much for a hog that size.

$1.89 a pound for vacuumed packaged loin why bother.

I bought a 365# fat hog from a gal a couple years ago and it nearly ruined me on pork.
Lard cracklins are great coyote bait when sprinkled over a flat set..

Buck a pound live weight

Based on???
Thats more than double market price.

thats what i pay, pig weighs 250 i pay 250$

I worked on the kill floor (butcher) in a sausage plant here in town for 2 years before it burned (Webber farms). We killed around 220 hogs a day on average. It was whole hog sausage. Most all of our hogs were well over 400 lbs. they were huge usually around 600. We have trucks, cattle trailers, tractors with loaders, fork trucks etc. Not to mention grinders and stuffers etc. The hogs I found are 11 months old and already 350 - 400 lbs.

I'm sure they are meat hogs. The guy that sells them runs a deal where he has them butchered and sells the meet etc. He puts a lot of work and effort in trying to raise top quality meat hogs.

You haven't had chicken or catfish until youve fried it in lard.

What is too much or too high of a price? If you buy what you want from whom you want raised and fed the way you want, then is price the major driver for you, be that meat, eggs, milk etc. etc.?

Bryce

Your correct when I started this post I really didn't know for sure. After I found the hog farmer up here and talked to him I really feel like that's the right path for me. I trust him and he's put in a lot of time and feed into his hogs. That's worth something more than a gamble at the stockyards.

It's honestly the same gamble. Those are the same type of hogs you'll find at the stockyards, and I would bet the same guy sells some there so maybe even the same exact hogs. Most all the hogs that go through the stockyards are fed by small time feeders. Large operations all feed on contracts so hogs never see a stockyard. I've certainly paid more than market for buying off the farm (cattle), but there's a limit. Four times the market value is well beyond that limit for me.