Cooking Bacon Pigs vs Lard Pigs?

Is there any difference in how you should cook these two types?

Trying to ascertain what type of pigs I should eventually get.

I looked up Lard pigs since I had not heard of them.
Lard breeds were used to produce lard, a cooking fat and mechanical lubricant.
These pigs were compact and thick, with short legs and deep bodies.
They fattened quickly on corn, and their meat had large amounts of fat in it.
This was considered desirable for improved taste and keeping qualities of the pork.
I am sure corn would not be a natural food for pigs, so I wonder if they fatten in the same way if they foraged naturally?
BACON PIGS
Bacon Pigs sometimes also called Meat Pigs which have longer bodies (L>=G) and develop higher levels of muscling.
These tend to be faster growing and larger.
The diameter of the loin muscle tends to be much larger than with lard pigs.
From; https://resources.bestfriends.org/article/what-feed-potbellied-pig used as pets
What is the healthiest diet for a pig?
Image result for bacon pigs diet
Safe veggies include broccoli, cauliflower, lima beans, green beans, sweet potatoes, corn, peas, edamame, peppers and zucchini. Don't feed your pig too much broccoli or cauliflower, however, since they can cause bloating and gas. Two or three times a week, you might want to include eggs in the pigs' food.2 Aug 2018

Hi Riley;
It depends if you want a lot of fat, including in the meat itself.
Or a bacon pig if you want to eat more meat and bacon.
The bacon pig will be similar to "store-bought" pork.
The Lard pig will not.
I raise bacon pigs each year, I have not raised a Lard pig.
I would expect that cooking either should be the same.

thomas rubino wrote:Hi Riley;
It depends if you want a lot of fat, including in the meat itself.
Or a bacon pig if you want to eat more meat and bacon.
The bacon pig will be similar to "store-bought" pork.
The Lard pig will not.

I would expect that cooking either should be the same.

I have smoked/cooked perhaps 3-400 loins over the last 40 years, and I presume most of the group knows, but what took me 4 hours to cook to perfection 40 years ago, now takes a little over 2 hours.  Same temp, and much lower final end temp of 145 degrees.  Almost all of the reasons for this is the simple fact that the loins are so much leaner than they used to be.  Lean meat cooks fast.  We can still make them excellent, but the process (time) has changed a lot. And today the flavor level is much less.  Thus we season more, marinate more, cook to a lower temp.   Basically doing what we got to do, to get the same great results.

I think one might start by thinking about feed.
If you want to raise them on pasture, choose a breed that can gain weight on grass.
I love fatty meat, and lard is a survival food, but "lean" pork is usually fatty enough.
Well, except for loin!

Last year I got a lard pig from a local farmer and although the flavor was great and I do process lard for cooking, I don't intend to get another one. It was just too much fat and too little meat for us.

This year she raised Old Spot and the meat is very good, there is plenty of fat, and the bacon has a nice ratio of lean/fat. All of her pigs are raised on pasture with some organic feed so the difference was definitely genetic. Another of our local providers only does Berkshire and I have to say that this is one of my favorite breeds for flavor, meat, and quality fat.

I haven't noticed a significant difference between Old Spot and the lard pig regarding cooking time.

Thanks for the replies! I'm leaning toward bacon pig, because in the end meat is a bit more important to me than lard.

I asked about cooking because as one person pointed out, I was worried about too much fat, too little meat.

Still looking into lard pigs maybe to be kept well separate, because while I can get butter and render it, extra sources of calories is never bad.

How much lard do you get from a lard pig?

Mike Haasl wrote:How much lard do you get from a lard pig?

The lard pig we got was not processed by us so a lot of the fat was not included in our custom cut package even though we asked for the lard. Looking at the chops, there seemed to be apx. 30-50% more fat and significantly less meat. A 1" thick chop would give 2 ounces of meat.

The bacon was about 80+% fat with thin meat layers. That's why I won't buy another one since we're paying for a lot of fat and not as much meat.

Or put another way...  If the zombies came through and you couldn't get olive oil at the store.  But you could get a lard piglet and you butchered it yourself to store lard,... How much lard might you end up with?

10 lbs, 100 lbs, ?

I always assume a family butchered at least one pig in the fall for meat and lard but I'm assuming that was a general purpose piggie.

I've butchered pot belly pigs before which fall into the lard category pig. The last one I did yielded 70lbs of pure fat and 15lbs of meat, the loins being very small about 2" across. This was perfect for my needs as I want the fat to mix with venison. I've also taken bacon type pigs well past prime butcher weight to yield both a meat and large fat yield from. I forget how much meat this last one yielded but it was also 70lbs of fat along with all the meat yield.

Thanks Marc, that was just what I was looking for :)

Your welcome Mike just sharing my experience.
Personally going forward I will take a free or cheap potbelly for lard but I will not buy a piglet to raise for fat or lard as it takes so long. What I've done twice now and will continue to do is raise a bacon pig to over 350lbs which is much larger than normal butcher size. This gives a good combination of meat and fat.

Bacon pigs need lower cooking temperatures because they are leaner. Older pigs need lower, slower cooking. Lard breed pigs have more tender meat due to the marbling. They don't don't cook hard and dry like the dumb pork chops from the grocery store.