Saturday, February 14, 2009

How much do those pigs weigh?


The pigs' weight is often a curiosity. Any guesses? We track their weight as a guide to how much to feed them, their overall health, estimated finishing date, and for fun. This batch is growing like weeds as they say. When we brought them home from Hogwash Farm, the Redcoats were 6 weeks old and weighed about 25-30 lbs. They were tiny, by comparison. Today's measurements reveal:
Revere: 288 lbs
Fife: 237
Drum: 219
Madison: 212
That means, they have gained on average 1.2 -1.6 pounds per day. Yikes! Talk about putting on your winter weight.

People often ask how we weigh the pigs. Funny images of them lining up to get on the scale come to mind. But, alas, their weights are estimates based on measuring their length & girth and doing some math. Given they never stand perfectly still, it does mean the above measurements could be off a bit. Revere is notably bigger than everyone else, but I wouldn't have thought Fife was 20 lbs bigger than Drum & Madison. Hmm.

2 comments:

  1. I love reading about your farm and can't wait to visit (still cooking up a spring break trip, more on that soon)! And now I know how a pig is "weighed."

    ReplyDelete
  2. You probably didn't even sense you were curious about how a pig is weighed -- glad to provide some tidbits from the farm.

    ReplyDelete