The advantages of using a professional butcher are numerous: no work on our part (and with large hogs like these there is an enormous amount of work involved), they have the facilities to keep the meat cooled compared to the summer heat we would face outside at our homestead, the end product is vacuum sealed in neat packages instead of wrapped and taped in paper on our dining room table, the sausage is already ground, mixed, and packaged, the fat is already rendered into lard, as well as the ability to have a large amount of the pork cured instead of the limited room refrigerating hams in the wet brine solution that we have used for curing. (Someday we will make a way to cure and smoke a larger amount here at home.)
The only disadvantages to using a professional meat market is that often times they are not honest nor "professional", we don't get the "scraps" that the dogs love so much, and the price can run into a lot of money that could be saved doing it all ourselves. I believe we have found a remedy to the first disadvantage I mentioned because the butcher we have used the past couple of times seem to be very honest and of good character. It is a meat market run by a conservative Mennonite family with a good reputation for integrity and customer service. The scraps we probably won't miss too much. The money; well, I guess with all the work that is involved someone deserves to be compensated fairly (even though it hurts my wallet).
We did get a large amount of pork back from these two hogs. The numbers are a bit staggering, but we have a lot of freezer space and we will not have to buy any meat for over a year. We've got 146 pounds of ham and bacon cured and smoked, 123 pounds of sausage, another 236 pounds of fresh pork in the form of tenderloin chops, sliced picnics, spare ribs, and roasts, as well as 13 quarts of lard!
The prices have increased a little since we last used them a year and a half ago. They charged $30 a piece slaughter fee (up from $25), $0.42 per pound processing (up from $0.35) for 505 pounds, $1.00 per pound for curing (same as before), and only $0.30 per pound for sausage (which was a discounted price since we got so much). That all comes to $455 dollars for the meat. It was more than I wanted to pay, but I'm not complaining.
I've taken some pictures, but I'll come back and post them later. Right now I need to help put it all away in the freezers. Thank you, Lord, for your blessings on us!
Here is what our hogs looked like on our dining room table packed in 15 boxes and 13 jars of lard:
And now I'll give you a visual taste of a small part of our pork:
Open the boxes:
Vacuum Sealed Bacon:
Boston Butt Roasts:
Picnic Shoulders:
Sausage:
Tenderloin:
Ham and ham steaks:
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