"Im all boobies ,hair ,nails and butt but you guys you just love it.."

Umm quite frankly Ozgirl, the girlie girls you describe there are
fun for a casual impregnation, but then its nice when they go home
again, as frankly I find them a little boring and irrational alot
of the time. Better a good farm girl who doesent freak out over
every spider and doesent mind getting her hands dirty.

Bob, those carcasses with too much fat, is there a problem in
simply slicing off the surplus, to suit consumer needs?

PF, how much is the fact thinggy genetic and how much is nutrition.
With lambs genetics plays a key role, although those with less
fat are sometimes not as rugged in their constitution.

I've actually taken a different direction to everyone else. I've
gone right back to Darwinian evolution theory. Genes either mutate
or are inherited, so first I've massively increased the gene pool
by combining at first 6 breeds, now 8. The result is all sorts
of genetic combinations which are usually better then either parent.
They have sex when they want, lamb when they want, some will simply
thrive in this given environment, others won't.

I make sure that the place is not overpopulated and that nobody ever
goes hungry, so feed supplementary feed at critical times of the
year. As I am God on this place :) I get to select the ram lambs,
which are generally thriving animals heading in the direction
we are going, ie. good constitution, good feet, clean bums, no
wool etc. The sheep do the rest, although I tail lambs every few
weeks. All very simple and low labour really, happy little sheep
too :)

Yabby – you are certainly right, genetics does play a part. We have started from scratch with our sows, mixing different breeds to get that ‘good do-er’. Fat scores have not been top priority in the early stages.

We have started using commercial boars from a well known stud. Their offspring have only just started to hit the ground and too early to test. They look promising though. The plan is to start selecting females from these boars based on fat scores.

We have such a robust herd of sows that I am quite confident pigs from this combination will cope well outdoors and inherit their mothering traits. It is a long process to breed a desired animal as you would know.

I have just come in from weighing and fat scoring pigs for delivery tomorrow. They are between 11 & 13mm of fat at the P2 to dress avg 45 kilos (trim 13). Would you accept pigs with that much fat butcherbob? What do you find acceptable?

Yabby, I thought you may have been in to the dorpers and damaras? Or are they crossbreds of these?

"Im all boobies ,hair ,nails and butt”

Did anyone else notice the omission of the word brains in that description?

"Yabby, I thought you may have been in to the dorpers and damaras? Or are they crossbreds of these?"

I have White Dorper blood in there, which gave us some of the shedding, but they have their own problems, with rule books, bad
feet, skin fragility etc. I've used White Suffolk, Texel,
Coolalee(itself 5 breeds), Poll Dorset, White Dorper, now
Finns and East Friesians. Going back to years ago, there is even
some merino in there too.

Oops, the yabbies and chardonay are nearly ready for lunch.
Life in the country can be pretty good really :)

We can bone out the loins for medallions or butterfly steaks. Some steaks out of the leg if its not too fat. The problem is what do you do with the rest of the carcass. We can only sell so much mince and sausages.

The thing is that people expect, and like, rind or crackling on their cuts of pork. To remove the fat, the rind has to go also. To avoid the huge waste from heavy trimming, we have tried trimming fat (and rind) from loin chops. It generally was not accepted. Ham without rind, just not done. Rindless bacon - yes, its funny how people are willing to pay so much extra for that when it probably means it was from a fat pig.

There is nothing wrong with 11-13mm of fat in my book. The fat is were the flavour and moisture is.

It all depends on were the fat is deposited. P2 is a good guide but not accurate with overall fat coverage. Fat could be heavier in the belly making the pig useless for bacon.

At the risk of offending, the free range pork I have seen is from hobby farmers that are probably not really aware of how difficult it is to grow good pork.

Yes Yabby

I'm just a poor, simple pr*@#k who can only act on the knowledge I have gained. The more knowledge I acquire the more I act.

Who viewed the documentary on SBS, many moons ago, on Farmer "Brown" in Holland and his procedure for pig farming?:

1. When piglets are about 3 weeks old, Farmer "Brown" wanders into the sty, grabs a piglet and castrates it. He proceeds until all piglets have had this procedure - no anaesthetic required!!

2. Perhaps another 3 weeks hence (I may have the procedure back to front), Farmer Brown wanders into the sty and proceeds to hack off the piglets' tails.

The squeals emanating from these animals will remain with me for the rest of my life.

Needless to say I do not eat pork!! Nor do I feed it to my visitors!

So Yabby - not good for business - would you not agree? Particularly when I relay this story to all and sundry.

And I have not eaten veal for some 30 years for the reasons you have stated.

In addition, I now do not eat lamb having been exposed to the barbaric practice of muelsing. I fail to understand why this practice continues supposedly in the "age of enlightenment",without the benefit of a local anaesthetic. Farmers need to get their priorities right when it comes to cost cutting!

I wonder who saw Sixty Minutes on the live sheep export where amongst a truck load of sheep at a dock in the middle east, was a deer. This animal was hog tied and thrown off the back of the truck to the jeers of Middle Easterners. Live sheep were rammed into the back of car boots without a thought!

So while Australian farmers are doing it tough, are they expressing outrage at animal cruelty; are their farming practices beyond reproach? I think not!

Therefore,our concerns will reduce farmers' profits. Action by governments and regulators on animal cruelty is well overdue if farmers wish to enjoy the fruits of their labour. In the meantime, I shall continue with my crusade!

Dickie – this is your only experience with intensive pig farming? An overseas documentary?

A lot of intensive farms dock tails yes, but not too many castrate pigs anymore. They are forced to grow so fast that there is no longer a need to. Tail docking is done because bored piglets all cramped in a pen virtually have nothing else to do. Once blood starts to flow it very difficult to stop the attack on one another. I might point out though that tail biting takes hold because piglets have very little feeling in the tip of their tale and it gets quite damaged before they even now about it. Farmer brown does not remove the entire tail.

Doesn’t happen on free range farms – not this one that’s for sure.

Now, the sqealing thing. That’s what piglets do. Pick one up and just hold it. The screams will deafen you. In a free range situation, it will also summon every nursing sow on the place, so run. Be around at feed time – ear pearcing! The whole 'oinking' thing is stuff of kids story books. Yes, they grunt and groan, but sqealing is most common.

I am not advocating these procedures and do not carry them out myself, but comments based on facts and not biased media and stereo typing farmers would be nice.

I doubt if you have ever eaten lamb that has been mulesed. It’s a procedure used on merinos. (Wool sheep) Do you think then that letting them die very slowly, having maggots eat thru their skin and start work on their insides is a better alternative? I don’t own merinos but would be interested to hear what you would do.