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Homegrown Pork: Humane, Healthful Techniques for Raising a Pig for Food

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Raising a pig is easy to do, even in a small space like a suburban backyard. In just five months, a 30-pound shoat will become a 250-pound hog and provide you with 100 pounds of pork, including tenderloin, ham, ribs, bacon, sausage, and more. For anyone who wants to raise a pig for meat in a backyard or on a small farm, this comprehensive guide explains exactly how to do it, humanely and safely. Livestock expert Sue Weaver covers everything from selecting a breed with great flavor and bringing your shoat home to feeding, housing, fencing, health care, and humane processing.

256 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2013

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About the author

Sue Weaver

20 books6 followers
Sue Weaver has written hundreds of articles and ten books about livestock and poultry. She is a contributing editor of Hobby Farms magazine and writes the “Poultry Profiles” column for Chickens magazine. Sue lives on a small farm in Arkansas, which she shares with her husband, a flock of Classic Cheviot sheep and a mixed herd of goats, horses large and small, a donkey, two llamas, a riding steer, a water buffalo, a pet razorback pig, guinea fowl, and Buckeye chickens.

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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
335 reviews6 followers
November 2, 2014
A great first source of information about raising pigs. I like Sue's focus on raising pigs humanely and introducing less popular breeds as viable options for small/backyard pork producers. Compared to some other articles and books I read on the subject, one might be led to believe that there's not much room for variety or organic methods in raising pigs. It's nice to hear a different story.
Profile Image for Meredith.
556 reviews1 follower
November 29, 2022
This is the first book I’ve read on the subject of pigs! (The vegan manifesto “Charlotte’s Web” doesn’t count). I now know way more about pigs and caring for them than I did before. Plenty of humour, information on breeds, instructions for handling, very helpful info on housing, fencing, diseases and handling, lots of source material and even some nice international recipes. This is a good addition to my farm library, but I know I haven’t read the last word on this topic. There’s not much in this book about nutrition and nothing on breeding, and the author unfortunately tempers her enthusiasm for pigs with lingering doubts about eating too much fat (it’s always kind of sad when people haven’t gotten the memo on that one yet). Pigs are pretty robust, easygoing animals and they reproduce like crazy. The biggest challenge for me of keeping pigs would be not getting attached to them. I’m planning to get some next year so we’ll see…
Profile Image for Dartharagorn .
161 reviews
May 11, 2023
Just getting into pigs on the homestead and this book was great. Though I would disagree on how pigs were first domesticated. I've heard the same line about dogs and didn't believe that one either. The rest of the book was great. An easy read with lots of good information. I would say if you're looking for good information about pigs this would a good start.
Profile Image for Emily.
190 reviews10 followers
March 25, 2020
Great overview for beginners! I would probably come back to reference a few parts of this book (fencing, feed, habits, etc.). The last few chapters about home processing were interesting, but not something we plan to do.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews

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