October 17, 2008
I have had 3 people get ahold of me through various sources, as their email messages were not going through to me. If you have not heard a reply from me and you have emailed me, try emailing me at tenzicut@yahoo.com . I am getting enough junk emails on my magazine email so it ought to be working, but if you have not heard from me, please try again. I am not meaning to ignore anyone.
he hogs were definitely about the size of pot belly pigs. The carcass weights on
them were about 50 pounds each. In the past I have gotten 200-298# per hog as
carcass weight. Yesterday I went to the guy whom I bought them from this year and he was
saying maybe they were eating sand and getting an impaction or they had
lungworms. I am not sure I buy the lungworm theory as other than not being
thrifty (as in growing well), they were not coughing and did not have rough
hair. Generally when they get an
impaction they die. Not one of these looked like they were on its last legs. I
checked the organs when I butchered and they also looked fine. Alive, they
looked and acted fine other than they did not grow tall, or long or add lots and
lots of pounds. They looked like miniature pigs.
I will try again next year as this had to be some kind of freak incident and couldn't possibly happen again. Like I said, they couldn't be any smaller next year, as if they were, they honestly would be the size of cocker spaniels. They were pretty much the size of 8-10 week old pigs at 6 months of age. The organic meat still worked out to be alot cheaper than store bought however.
The only redeeming feature about them is I cooked a roast last night for dinner and you could cut it with a spoon and it had an excellent taste. Even my guy, who hated the butchering and thought about becoming a vegetarian again last weekend, decided it was delicious. He just has to go to stay at his mom's for the weekend when I start dispatching animals for the freezer next year.
With the cloud cover and rain, it stayed about +6C/42F last night.
Tonight I am making yam soup to take advantage of the Thanksgiving leftovers.
Yam Soup
Pour chicken broth into a saucepan, with curry powder, salt, pepper, onion powder and garlic powder. Bring to a boil over medium heat. Add yam and onion, and simmer for about 20 minutes. Add rice, and cook for another 20 minutes, or until rice is tender.