What is a Half a Hog?

Recently, friends came to pick up their half hog. They had time to visit, so we reconstructed the pig so that everyone else can see what you get with a half Hog Share. These are not the cuts that you have to get, many of these cuts can be made in to other things. This is the standard size hog that I am raising to 250# live weight. This half hog was a total of 74.5# of actual packaged cuts. The total price was $511.63 which works out to $6.86/lb (This is a better price for hog shares than I have been giving estimates for!)

Here are the cuts from left to right across the top:
4 Boston Butt roasts from the shoulder. These could have also been made in to shoulder steaks and country style ribs.

3 bone in loin roasts. These can also be cut as pork chops at the thickness you choose.

The ham was cured and smoked and then cut in half. This could have been cut in to fresh roasts or ham steaks, fresh or as country style smoked ham steaks.

Then below the ham are two packages of smoked ham hocks. Most folks use these for soups.

In the center is a split rack of spare ribs in two packages.

The belly made 9 packages of cured, smoked and sliced bacon.

Then there were 4 1-1.5lb packages of ground Italian sausage. This could have been left as plain ground pork, seasoned in many other styles or made in to links in various flavors, smoked or fresh.

The legs in my reconstructed pig are made up of smoked sausage links. they got 5 packages of these and they run closer to 1.5lb/pkg.

It is also possible to get the head, feet and tail back as well as organs and extra fat for lard rendering. Pigs are very versatile. Any of the cuts in the picture could have been used to make more sausage. I just had a pig processed for eating myself and selling by the package and I chose to have the entire pig made in to smoked sausage links except for the bacon.

So, a Whole Hog Share would be twice this much and a Quarter Hog Share half as much. The price rate for all are the same. Half and Whole shares give you more choices of cuts.

For a Half Hog Share you need about 4 cubic feet of freezer space.