The Ultimate Joint Ltd
Pigs & Pork
Our rare breed Gloucester Old Spot pigs are friendly outdoor pigs that spend most of their lives happily rooting around in the mud digging up roots, plants and grubs or sleeping. The have arcs that they can sleep in at night but sometimes you will see them getting their beauty sleep under the stars.
When the sows are ready to have their piglets we bring them into a barn (a spacious barn!) so that they can farrow. Sow & piglets stay here until the piglets are about 3 weeks old at which point we tattoo them so that we can birth notify them to the British Pig Association who keep records of all the rare breeds in the UK. This is also means that the piglets could one day be used for breeding rather than entering the food chain. Once tattooed they go to live outside with their mum until they are ready for weaning which usually happens at around 8 weeks old. This is a very smooth process as at this age they have been pinching mums food for a couple of weeks and have only going in for milk as a sneaky top up.
We decided to start bringing them to the barn to farrow as we don't loose as many (in the small arcs the sow will sometimes lay on them) and they seem to get a better start - they're a little chubbier and more energetic.
This breed produces fantastic tasting pork. We butcher the pork ourselves, make our own sausages and cure and smoke our own bacon. This means that we are better equipped to cater to our customers needs. It also means that we can take out the additives where they aren't needed and we do NOT add water to our bacon. On a side note we do not castrate our piglets so we apologise if you are one of those rare people that can smell boar taint - we promise it will taste better than it smells. If you are not one of those people then don't worry we find it has no effect on the meat at all.
As well as the normal butchery cuts which you can purchase from our butchery, stockists or farmers markets we also offer half and whole pigs packaged freshly for your freezer and cut to your specifications. Please see the below price list for prices or . to find out how to purchase our products.
