Andy Radford

Here in the UK, the abattoirs are geared for 50-75kg (about 6 months old) as there is a perceived view that above this weight there is too much fat on the pig, and fat is bad for you (if you listen to supermarkets), additionally when foot and mouth was prevalent many of the smaller, niche abattoirs decided to get out of pigs entirely. This leaves mainly large abattoirs which are geared to cope with the requirements for the supermarkets rather than specialists. The big issue is the de-hairing machine which can only take up to a certain weight of pig (although you can do this by hand). There are still a few specialist abattoirs which can cope with the larger beasties, just don’t expect to turn up to a large processor with a small hippo sized pig in the trailer and not be turned away!

We have run entire pigs up to 12 months old with no hint of boar taint, I am firmly convinced that stress and environment has more to do with the early onset of boar taint than simply age. Ours pigs are outdoor reared and kept together in small groups, they are regularly visited by us (twice a day for feeding) and plenty of kids and parents at the weekend come and have look. We have only had one pig that turned nasty (in 7 years and over 100 pigs) and he was booked straight in to the butchers. Ours pigs are traditional / rare breeds. I also find spending time with the pigs is a great way of them getting to know you, there is nothing better than sitting on the ground in the pen or field after a stressy day at work with a bunch of pigs climbing over you legs and rolling over wanting a scratch and fuss. The only thing to be aware of is make sure the abattoir can cope with the size of pigs you end up with, a 120+kg will be beyond some abattoir capabilities.