I think my hogs have hit the 300 pound mark or are real close to it, but locker date isn’t until middle of March (first available dates, scheduled when I first bought the piglets)

My question is will the quality or taste of the meat be affected keeping them and feeding them for the next two months? Will they got to big?

Just more waste due to fat but shouldn't effect taste

I always thought slightly older hogs tasted better. You may be able to feed some hay to keep them from getting overly fat, I never minded the extra fat personally.

If your not going to butcher yourself tell him you want all the fat he trims off. You can render it into lard. Add it to venison and make sausage (lots of online places to buy spice already mixed) or any other game meat. Rendering is not hard. Just remember to use a low heat.

Thanks guys, I didn’t think it would affect the taste but thought i would ask

Danny we are only butchering one ourselves the rest of them all have locker dates. I wanted cured meat and have never done that myself, but I think will try to cure myself next time around. I plan to save the day for summer sausage next year but also wondered about making lard. Have never done that, and have actually never used lard either

I will make a new thread and post some photos when we butcher the one ourselves

I just did one that scaled 489 and was surprised how little fat was on it. Must be the genetics.

My hog was a feeder late August I think the guy said, but was so big because they're on automatic feeders. I was also Leary of it tasting strong but what I've eaten so far is good.

Everything is better fried in lard………….well bacon grease is pretty hard to beat too lol.

I had a guy , well until he up and died on me in a farm accident. that sold me hogs for a flat price.

the last one I bough from him was 277 hanging weight , so probably 340-350 on the hoof that was good pork
I wasn't processing myself back then but butcher slots were easy to come by at the time.

the reason the big processors mark people down on over weight hogs is not that they don't taste good , but the high volume lines are optimized for a specific size and they don't get much more actual meat even if the fat is useful it isn't as valuable

Clay I fry up an omlet every morning in bacon grease!

Here's a pic of it. The biggest I ever did for myself before this one weighed 350.

Dad and I would like to get a walk in cooler someday, last time we butchered hogs we killed skimmed and quarterd them one day and stuck them in coolers of ice then broke down the rest of the way the following day

Yea, we kill one day and split them. They hang overnight to set up and we cut up the next day. Its cold enough now that you wouldn't need a cooler, but ya never know about the weather in March when your thinking.

Any Hutterite colonies around that could do it?

My dad, brother-in-law, and I did one that was in the 550-600 range... It was a day's work but manageable and the meat tasted fine.

Mike

Hippie that’s true on being able to hang them in this cooler weather over night, the one we are going to butcher ourselves we will do at the end of this month

Hippie also looks like you got a better space to work than we !

Lawdog we don’t have any of them folks around here, got some Amish about 45 min away but I don’t mind doing ourself just wish we had a better facility. And wish we new what we were doing on curing meat

Big thing with meat curing is keeping the meat cold till it cures. Also letting it drain. Needs to be on wood stone or glass.

You should be fine holding them, maybe cut back on the corn and give them something bulky, can you get pumpkins or squash cheap?