So through a contact provided me from a Facebook group called "Sausage Debauchery", I got hold a gentlemen named Josh Davis from Frolona Farm. Josh raises pastured heritage breed hogs and grass fed cattle on a farm in Franklin, Georgia - east and a little south of Atlanta. His family has owned the farm for a long time (1840s if I remember right?) and darned if it isn't prettiest plot of land I've seen in this state.
I'll admit to being most of the way sold on Josh's operation after seeing this video that was linked to from the farm's Facebook page. That said, once I got into contact with him, he was very up front with what he did, why he did it and was very patient with my questions and inquiries. At no point did I get the impression that he was being evasive (like I gotten elsewhere). He told me why he bred the breeds he bred and what the goal of his breeding program was in the short-term and the long-term. He was very accommodating of me and my family when we paid a visit to the farm. His prices were right about in the middle of what I'd seen and met with my budget for the project.
I don't think I've mentioned this before, but there is something special about being able to shake the hand on the person who raised your food. I've spent my whole life removed from my food, just buying whatever was on the shelf at Kroger or Publix. I think as a consumer, there is something fulfilling to looking into the eyes of the person you are purchasing something from. We've lost that in today's society. I'm as loyal an Amazon customer as the next person and its been a long time since I could look at the face of the person who is selling me this DVD or that coffee maker. But even before online sales, did we really have a connection to the store clerk at Best Buy who told us which TV to buy? I didn't. It was still pretty sterile and anonymous. Frankly though, I don't think I "need" the same kind of connection with the salesperson at Haverty's when buying that new sofa; he didn't build the sofa. And true, my dollars go towards his salary, but it takes many steps to get there. When I pay Josh directly for a hog that he raised, the money stays between us. And I think the farmer gets something out of that interaction too... sure, its his livelihood - but there's more there. He's met my two kids. My son played with his dog. There is a direct link between the hog that he is raising and the family it will feed. That "link" is a form of accountability... Unless he's a psychopath and gets off on feeding people diseased meat, he's going to try to raise the best product he can. That "link" ensures that. And I think that "link" is missing with today's food supply. I can't be the only person who believes that. And I really do think that there is a whole higher level of job fulfillment for a farmer who gets to see the smiling faces who enjoy the fruits of his labor. But, I digress (you'll find I do that a lot!).
Okay - back to the project.
When you buy your meat from a local provider, you are going to come in contact with terms such as hanging weight, processors, cut sheets, and probably a whole bunch of others that I've forgotten.
The processor is the facility that will slaughter the animal (also known as an abattoir.) For normal folks who want their meat to be pre-cut and packaged, the processor is also likely to be the butcher too. But for nutjobs like myself, who just want to carcass on the kitchen counter to butcher on our own, the processor is just the processor. And they'll kill and eviscerate the hog, scald and scrape the hair off, remove the head, cut the carcass in half and hang it to chill. After that, its on me.
Hanging weight refers to the weight of the carcass after evisceration (and usually without the head) as it hangs. Most prices are going to be given based on hanging weight. In my case, Josh's prices (in January of 2015) are $3.50 per lb. and most his hogs were weighing about 200-250lbs hanging.
Based on our conversations, I expected the my half (I was ordering a half hog - due to budget, freezer space, and first time jitters, I only wanted to try to manage a half) to weigh between 100-120lbs hanging weight. So for the sake of my small math brain, 100lbs hanging weight would cost me $350 total. Josh had figured his abattoir fees into that. Some farmers had quoted me prices that were just for the hanging weight and then a price on top of that for processing (kill fee, butcher fee...). Had I gone with them, I would have expected to pay less in processor fees since I was doing the butchering.
We agreed on the terms of the sale and then it was just a matter of waiting until the hogs were ready and we could match up schedules. I requested a hog on a specific date. Sadly, he was unable to "confirm" that date two weeks in advance. Reason being that my order was the only order for a hog that he had for delivery that day. Certainly there are transportation costs and such that figure into that but the primary reason is that he believes that transporting an animal alone to a strange place puts undue stress on the animal and he won't do it. I can totally respect that. And while I'd never thought about it, I actually prefer that approach... why go through the process of raising a top quality hog only to have the quality degraded by butchering a stressed animal? I don't think for a moment that a pig has an awareness of impending slaughter - but I do think its capable of thinking, "Hey. what is that loud machine he wants to put me in? Hey, what is this strange place? Hey, where'd all my buddies go? Hey, I don't like being alone!"
So... it was a matter of waiting until our schedules would sync up - but in the meantime, I needed to get ready... But wait, wasn't this going to be easy?
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