I just bought a 240# pig from the local FFA freezer sale over the weekend, the processor hasn’t called me yet about what cuts I want done. This is a first time for me, so if you see that I am missing something please let me know. Or if you see something conflicting on the wanted cuts:
Baby back ribs
Spare ribs
Bellies
Pork shoulders(butts) 1.5" steaks, I don’t care for pulled pork.
pork cheeks whole, I plan on trying to make guanciale
thick bone in pork chops
I am not sure they cure hams, if not is that something that is difficult, I’d request them boneless.
Pork ribeye
residual ground

Thanks!

I miss my girls being in High School Ag. For three years we had a show pig for the freezer. We had a great processor in Weatherford, Hamiltons. They cured the best tasting, perfect cuts of bacon. Also,we got tenderized cutlets. Chicken fried them just like chicken fried steak. These pigs had the best feed, clean water..........

So, if you can get bacon, tenderized cutlets and breakfast sausage add that to the order.

I already got 50# of breakfast sausage in the freezer, but if they do bacon I will have them make it, save me some time and efforting there.

If they make bacon I would definitely ask if they make Tasso. It's not hard to make but might as well....

Yeah, I have the hog book, and one of the reason to go with thick cut steaks off the pork butts is to make tasso.

Saweet! Love that stuff.

I would take the ham hocks and smoke them to use in a bean recipe.

I’d put it on feed for a bit before processing. Show hogs are gonna be lean compared to run of the mill pork.

Unfortunately that isn’t an option.

Good on you for supporting FFA!

I had one given to me a few years ago by my son. My granddaughter shows pigs, and they have a few every year that don`t get sold. Show pigs don`t get fed a corn / protein mix, like a feedlot pig would get. They get expensive powders mixed with a few other things mixed with water that cost between 7-8 hundred dollars to finish out a show pig. After spending 350 bucks to get my free pig processed in Springtown, I wasn`t impressed with the pork taste or tenderness. The sausage wasn`t all that good either. It was really too much meat for just me and the wife and I gave 75% away to friends at work.

You're making me feel real good now about my purchase....

You might be able to get them to save the leaf lard and backfat if you want to use it across other applications (lard, game sausages, etc) vs just throwing it in the grind

On the other hand...My son gives one to a guy he works with a free one every year and he loves it. Peoples taste vary.

My son raised chickens this year. We had 75 to start, butchered 25 as culls a little over 1/2 way through. They are good. The other half kept till the end of the project were huge. Meat is hard and more fibery/grainy. Going to make sausage out of them. Raising show animals is almost nothing like how our food is actually raised.

It's a great learning experience for kids and very rewarding. Before I sold my homestead my youngest finally talked me into chickens, and then ducks. It was a great/fun family experience that I'd never take back. We started with 45 chickens and 30 ducks. We were serious about giving them what they needed and protecting them. It was fun with the kids.

All it takes is 1 or 2 neighborhood dogs to get out and kill 15-20 birds in 5 minutes. Hawks/coons/owls/cats/yotes all will kill a few to eat.....but a domestic dog will kill the whole flock just to kill them and quick. So, beware of that. When your kid's favorite birds that they talked to/fed and held every day gets killed by a mutt shepherd owned by some [censored] head it is very hard not to retaliate in a physical manner.

Yes, meat chickens need a different diet.

My little girl was fine with whacking heads off and cleaning chickens all day long, as long as it wasn't her favorite birds lol.

Yep we had 2 fun days and split the butchering. Son helped and has been happy to eat them so far. Ours were spoiled birds lived in an insulated heated and cooled storage building. My old beagle managed to get in there and she just looked at them and hopped back out. Think she knew she was too old for that chit.

If you like to smoke meat I'd highly recommend getting your shoulders and hams cut into 1.75" steaks. Pork steak is vastly underrated. I get a pig from a buddies dad every year and that's what I do. If you want pulled pork you can smoke it just like a pork butt and get the same end result in not near as long of a smoke.

I ended up doing that, smoked pork steaks are one of my favorite things that you really don’t find out in the wild. I know of one place that does it.

I have to agree, bought a couple before and way too lean, fed the dogs with the first one and had the second one fed out for a month on corn
Hope yours is a good one . A least the money goes to a good cause