Over at the HS forum they're talking about meat

[conuly]

because of course they are.

Anyway, one poster made an illuminating comment on modern farming that I think everybody could benefit from:


My familiarity is only with the hog industry. My dad is part of a very large farmer owned cooperative. Once upon a time, you kept your own boars (male studs) and your own sows (breeding females.) However, it's become more efficient to keep the boars and sows on one major farm, then put the feeder pigs (3 week old little pigs) on a semi and send them out to the grower farms. The grower farms have inside temperature controlled climates. Pigs are now bred so lean and so specific that their ability to handle stress is impacted. Their immune systems are lower and their ability to handle stress is impacted so they don't grow as well or get sick more easily. To decrease exposure, pigs are essentially held in quarantine - one large group comes in, one large group goes out. My dad used to get a shipment of pigs every 2-3 months. So he might have one pen of 1 month old pigs, one pen of four month old pigs, and one group headed to be butchered. But, if one group got sick in there, the entire building couldn't be cleaned, so they'd infect the new group coming in and it would just continue. So, most farmers have moved to an "all in all out" system. They get shipments of babies twice a year. Each group is butchered between 5-6 months, giving a week to rest and a week to clean (give or take) and disinfect the entire facility. It reduces illness and then reduces medication, thus reducing costs.

But, therein lies the problem. If your facility is full of 260 pound "fat hogs" you have ZERO space for the new batch of hogs. These hogs can't just "be put in the barn" out back. They're carefully cultivated for one thing (butchering) and not fit for stress (weather fluctuations, drafty areas, etc) and would die. Thus, your new babies have little cost wrapped up in them - it's cheaper to kill them. Your adult hogs have all the costs wrapped up in them. It would be stupid to kill your fully finished animals.

Okay - so you've kissed off your next six month group. Do you then get pigs next month? Or do you not get yours again for six months? Remember, every litter is completely spoken for and carefully timed. There are no "extra" animals in this system.

This is excerpted from a longer comment.

I think... I think I'm going to start spending a lot more to primarily get heritage breeds from small-scale suppliers in the future.

Comments

[alexseanchai]

yeah.

[wendelah1]

I put myself on a waiting list for this. No idea how long it will take to get off the list, and start receiving meat, however.

I can afford to pay but there is a limited supply.

[conuly]

They're undoubtedly swamped.

[loligo]

Unfortunately I am now allergic to beef & pork, but I live in an area with a number of good small meat producers. I remember buying bacon at the farmer's market one time, and the lady apologized for how fatty that batch of bacon was, and started reminiscing about the individual pig that it came from.

The egg prices from the small producers are fairly comparable to the prices for fancy eggs in the story (free range, organic, etc.). The prices for chicken meat, alas, are a lot higher, but I think I'm going to start paying it.

[conuly]

Yes, there was more discussion in the thread about chickens, not just the poor conditions they're kept in but the overbreeding.

[mama_kestrel]

I don't eat pork, but I've been buying my beef direct from the farmer for the past couple of years. Eggs are easy; I live in farm country. Literally, I drive down the county roads and see signs "Eggs For Sale". I don't have a source of chicken, though.

[dogstar]

Yup. It's a thing.

Add to that the difficulty in scheduling for processing small producers' animals. (on-farm slaughter is perfectly reasoanble for chickens and turkeys and doable for lambs and smaller goats, but for pork or cattle, it's a LOT faster and easier to do it with heavy equipment available.) Many processors don't want to mess with a bunch of tiny orders (so if you have one cow to get processed, you're kind of at the mercy of whichever plant in your area is willing to fit your critter in, plus if you don't have a trailer you're going to have to line up hauling (and most commercial producers do have one, but not all, especially if it's a sideline). Add to that sick workers and the schedule is even MORE borked up.

I'm both immensely annoyed and very grateful we didn't do a batch of meat chickens and turkeys this year with everything that's been going on.

[conuly]

Are there slaughterhouses etc. that specialize in small farmers?