Why We’re Excited About Red Wattle Pigs and What It Means for Our Pork Lovers
Conoly Sullivan
We’re excited to share some news about our pastured pork offerings! As many of you know, we’re passionate about raising healthy, happy animals while providing nutrient-dense, flavorful food for our community. In this post, we’ll break down our current pork offerings, an exciting switch we’re making with our pigs, and a quick guide to the cost of bringing premium pastured pork to your table.
Supporting Local Farmers: A Collaborative Effort
First off, we want to say thank you for supporting not only our farm but local farmers everywhere. We believe in a strong community of farmers and customers who value ethical, sustainable food practices. Whether you’re buying our pork or getting beef from another trusted source, we appreciate your efforts to keep small farms thriving. Together, we’re ensuring a steady supply of fresh, local food for our families and neighbors.
Popular Pork Cuts: What Our Customers Love
When it comes to pastured pork, we know what our customers enjoy most. The cuts in highest demand include:
Pork Butt (perfect for BBQ)
Ribs (for those fall-off-the-bone meals)
Loin (great for chops and tenderloin)
Sausage (always a crowd-pleaser)
We love these cuts too, and they’re consistently our best sellers. In addition to these popular options, we also offer some unique cuts, like the knuckle, which is perfect for making Schweinshaxe, a delicious traditional German dish that’s a personal favorite of mine.
Whole Hog Offerings: From Nose to Tail
At Eremos Farm, we believe in utilizing the whole animal. Just like when you buy beef, you can request every part of the pig to be packaged—from the organs to the feet, ears, head, and bones. Some of our customers use these parts for supplements (like liver), while we use the rest for our Central Asian shepherd dogs. Of course, bacon and sausage are available too, although there’s an additional processing fee for those items.
Introducing Red Wattle Pigs: More Meat, More Flavor
Now for the big news—we’re transitioning to Red Wattle pigs! Why the switch? Red Wattles are known for being excellent meat producers, which means more delicious pork cuts for you and more sausage options, something we’re really excited about.
Previously, we raised New Guinea hogs, which are considered “lard pigs.” While we love the benefits of lard, especially for its rich vitamin D content, we want to focus on providing you with more traditional pork cuts, and Red Wattles are perfect for that.
These pigs take about 5 months to grow to around 300 pounds, which translates to approximately 220 pounds of meat. This allows us to offer more variety and ensures we can meet the growing demand for our pork. We expect our next batch of Red Wattle pigs to be ready for processing in mid to late March or early April, and we can’t wait to share the results with you!
How Much Does It Cost?
We know price is an important factor when choosing your pork, so here’s a breakdown of what you can expect. For our largest pig (about 300 pounds), here’s how the cost breaks down:
Sausage Processing: 74 pounds at $0.45 per pound = $33.30
Bacon: 21.39 pounds at $4.50 per pound = $96.26
This brings the total processing cost to $566.96, with the pig itself costing $1,284. Altogether, the total cost comes to $1,850.96, which breaks down to about $8.80 per pound of meat.
We’re also excited to announce that we’re switching processors to one that’s more affordable. This should help lower overall costs, and we’re aiming to keep the processing fee around $250 for our next round of pigs.
Interested in Half a Pig? We’re Looking Into It!
While our current processor doesn’t offer the option for half pork, we’re exploring this with another processor. Stay tuned for updates, and if you’re interested in splitting a pig with someone, let us know!
Place Your Orders Soon!
If you’re as excited about our Red Wattle pork as we are, don’t wait too long to place your order! We expect demand to be high, and we’re already getting inquiries from past customers. Check out our Pork Page for more info on pricing individual cuts of pork.
Thank you for continuing to support our farm. Your commitment to local, sustainable, and ethically raised food makes all the difference. We can’t wait to bring more of the best pastured pork to your table!