New Memeber Intro

I'd like to take the time to introduce myself as a new member. My name is Tim and I live in the NW corner of Ohio. I was up late the other night and was listening to Bill Leff on WGN, he was talking about the LTH Forum. I checked it out and found the Gardening, Farming and Foraging board.

I'm very encouraged to see the interest in eating local and growing food. I read some posts about raising or buying pigs direct from the farm, and some of the questions involved. I'm here to offer myself up as a resource. My wife and I raise freezer pigs and sell them locally. I'm not going to try to sell anybody on this board pork, but I will encourage anybody interested, to buy pork or beef directly from a local (to you) farmer.

If anyone has any questions about what is involved in buying a freezer pig, feel free to ask. I've learned over the years that people are afraid to ask questions at first, but once they go through the process the first time, they always come back.

If there is interest in this topic, ask away and I'll go into more details.... if not, I'll be sitting in the corner quietly reading posts.

This looks like a great forum, I'm looking forward to exploring.

Thanks for reading,

Tim

Welcome aboard Freezer Pig and thank you for your straightforwardness. I have bought pork from time to time from my local farmers market but mostly just chops. When you sell, do you sell a whole pig and then split it up like freezer locker beef and sell it as a package or do you sell individual parts? I don't think I've ever seen anything other than chops and tenderloin sold at the markets.

We currently do not sell individual cuts. Most of what we sell is by the half, although we do sell whole hog sausage by the pound. We've talked about trying to sell cuts, but we're afraid once the bacon and chops were gone, we'd have everything else left.

We are lucky to have a couple of slaughter facilities and a half dozen local butchers all within 10-15 miles of here. We give people their choice of butchers and all they have to do is call in the cut list. We take care of scheduling and getting the pigs there on time. The customer simply writes us a check for their share of the pig, and pays the butcher for the processing when they pick up their frozen meat.

We make it as hands on as the customer wants it to be. We've had people visit our farm to see the pigs as they are growing, others don't even want to know what they look like, for fear of not being able to eat them. We are completely open about our practices, from feed ingredients to antibiotic usage.

We always have pork in our freezer, so we've been known to give away a package of chops or a little bacon for someone to try, so they know what they are missing.

At the end of the day, I'm happy if I can just educate someone about where their food comes from. If they buy a half a pig from us, that's even better.

Tim

hello freezer pig, lot of pork eating on lth

Welcome Tim!!