PORK
Naturally Raised without Antibiotics.
HERITAGE PORK
We are excited to share more about our newest adventure over here at Brown Family Farm in Oak Park.
We added pigs to our farm back in 2021. They are crosses between Red Waddle, Hampshire & Berkshire; all are well known heritage breeds. These pigs have earned their reputation and are raised for their fat to muscle ratio. For best flavor and tenderness, pork should have marbling. The cross breeding between the oldest Heritage Hog lines provides us with piglets that possess all of the desirable traits from their lineage!
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Our neighbor farrows for us. She's right around the corner and you can actually see her barn from our front door. Talk about local! These pigs are born and raised on the farm, with the most comfortable life possible.
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We are selling our pigs has halves and wholes again this season. We're charging a base price per pound ($3.75) and you work directly with our butcher to customize your processing. The thickness of your chops, the amount of hams or roasts, seasoned sausage, you get to choose what you want! Butchering costs are explained more below and paid directly to the butcher. More info on this below.
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**You do not need to be a Farm Share Members to purchase Pork!
Enjoying their fresh hay!
I'm ready for my close up!
Building another run!
H A P P Y & H E A L T H Y
Animal husbandry should be your first question when considering locally raised meats. How are they cared for? What do they eat? Where do they live and how much space do they have?
Hogs are the ultimate foraging creature; they enjoy being able to exercise their instincts to root up the ground looking for bugs, worms, roots, and any organic material they can find. Yes, they eat SO much produce on our farm here too! More on this below.
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As piglets we start them on a special feed. It's a higher protein feed that encourages structural & bone growth early on. After that high protein grain, we switched them to the standard grains. We're getting thousands of pounds delivered to us now that we have a grain wagon, which sits in our driveway. So we feed them with buckets everyday.
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We offer our feed as "free choice", so they have access to food all the time; as much or as little as they want. It encourages healthy eating habits where they're not gorging themselves. It also allows them to forage at their own pace and let their natural instincts shine. They can spend as much or as little effort foraging as they want. Though it seems to be their favorite thing to do!
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They also get fresh bedding and hay consistently. They cherry pick through it and get all the seeds and tasty remnants. We have been using it as "bedding" because it is what we had on hand. Previous farm owners had left a lot of hay in the loft so we're steadily working through it. It's a welcomed surprise for these pigs for sure! It's hay (not straw) so it does hold an amount of nutritional value to them but I'd say the main benefit is comfort. They make a hog pile in the hay and bed down like a bunch of baby birds in a nest. We'll also buy corn stalk bales from our neighbors which provide as much nutrition as they do entertainment!
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This is the beauty of free choice; our hogs are able to eat whatever they want to whenever they want. Fresh produce and grains alike. It makes for healthy eating habits resulting in healthy growing rates, which in turn helps us to provide you with the best quality Premium Heritage Breed Pork.​
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​We are giving them the trimmings from plants, or over-ripe muskmelons for example. Which is 100% their favorite food of all time! A good example of the produce they're getting is when we bring them tons of cauliflower greens. When we go out and harvest cauliflower for our CSA, we keep the leaves intact around the head of cauliflower, which completely cover the 'face' of the cauliflower to keep it safe in travel. We haul the cauliflower in from the field on the wagon and bring it to the pack shed where we will wash it and cut away the outer leaves, exposing a beautiful head of cauliflower! (That's what goes in your CSA!)
When we trim all the leaves off, we put them in gaylords and have SO MUCH produce/ greens/ fruits etc. to bring them. A gaylord in a unit of measurement, it's the bins that are used for watermelons and pumpkins at grocery stores. With the cauliflower, a single day's CSA harvest will yield at least a gaylord of fresh greens for them! Literally hundreds of pounds.​
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They have so much extra produce to enjoy that they never even finish it, they are fed greens every single day of the week which results in wonderful marbling!​
2 OPTIONS FOR YOU
​1. Pork Packages- smaller, free delivery (takes up about 1 cubic feet in the freezer). *Great gift idea!
We have 2 different packages. The original Pork Package has more variation in the products that are included. We only have 3 of those packages left! The Farmer's Choice Package is a bit of a better deal because it's all the different cuts that we have on hand. Still a great variety of products, too!
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Delivery: You can enter the address where you want it delivered, or you can type in there "farm pick up" and we can arrange for you to come out to the farm here. I plan to deliver pork packages within 1 week of your order.
Delivery of our Pork Packages is easy now that it's so cold outside, just leave a cooler outside and I will leave your Pork Package in the insulated bag, inside of your cooler.
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2. Whole/Half Hogs- larger quantity, more cuts, personalized butchering.
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This is for the folks who want to get the best per-pound-price by buying in bulk. There are 4 main areas on the hog to know about: the front shoulder (where the roasts come from), the back leg (where the hams come from), the belly (where the bacon comes from, and the loin/side (where the chops come from). More info on this below.
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We have a handful of hogs left as of today: Dec 4th 2024. We're going to the butcher shop in 2 weeks.
ORDER HERE
WHAT TO EXPECT $
Now that we have a couple years' worth of data under our belts, I can share some of the examples from previous seasons!
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We charge $3.75 a pound hanging weight for raising the pig and we raise our pigs to be about 300# on the hoof meaning they'll dress anywhere from 200-225 pounds generally. Sometimes we have smaller ones and sometimes bigger ones but this is average. So a half pig is going to be $375 appx. and a whole is going to $750.
Processing is paid separately, straight to the butcher shop when you pick up & it’s usually about $175 for a half and $350 for a whole.
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All this to say your TOTAL cost for a half hog is avg $550.
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Total cost for a whole hog is avg $1,100.
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We work with Backroads Meats in Milaca. They have a base processing fee of $1.10 per pound for a half hog and $1.05 for a whole hog. There are additional expenses for smoking the hams or making brats for example. There aren't additional costs for anything that's just cut and wrapped. So, the pork chops for example, are just going to cost you the base processing fee per pound because they're just cut from the loin, there isn't any additional processing/ smoking, etc.
MORE DETAILS
The way it works is you pay us to raise the pig for you and pay the butcher to process it for you. The cost paid to us is based on the hanging weight of the pig, we charge $3.75 per pound. This is how we have sold every bit of our pork until just this past winter, Jan 2024, when we started offering Pork Packages.
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If you commit to a half or a whole hog, you get to decide how you want it cut up, how thick you want your pork chops, how many of the roasts you want smoked (making it a ham- delicious!!), sausage, etc. They can do specialty processing (which has an extra charge) for smoking, making sausage or ground pork, making brats, with many more options available. The butcher walks through the process with you to answer questions and get you exactly what you want.
​We had never ordered pork like this before we brought our own hogs in.
I was a newbie! I can tell you that they will answer all of your questions and walk you through the whole process. There is a 'standard' processing, and we still go with most of that today. For example: we want bone-in pork chops, our hams quartered and smoked, bacon thick cut and smoked, etc. That's what almost everyone does, but there are more options and they will go through all of it with you. If you're into smoking meats, make sure to mention that because they might have some suggestions for you and what cuts to get. Specifically request the Boston Butt for example. It's from the top of the shoulder and is known for being one of the best cuts for smoking! ​
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From the day that we drop off our pigs to the day you pick up your processed pork is generally 2 weeks. They'll call you directly when your pork is ready, and you pay for processing at their shop when you go pick up.
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The picture above is our daughter with one of the piglets. Our youngest daughter took the picture- they're "modeling"! ;)
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If you're ready to sign up for your Heritage Pork, feel free to scroll up and get your deposit submitted. We look forward to being in touch!