Measuring a Pig WITHOUT a Scale vs. Actual Pig Weights | Plus what to expect from the Butcher
This is Cam. I’m excited to be on here, as a “guest writer!!” 2021 was our first year raising pigs, and I was super excited to raise our own. I really wanted to do better keeping good records of the costs, inputs, and processes, for our own purposes, and in the case we decide to start marketing and selling the meat in the future. Information carefully recorded is knowledge available in time of need.
A lot of people ask, “how much bacon do you get from a pig?” So to answer that, and a lot of other questions, I created this sheet below. On it are details around feed qtys, weights per pig, hanging weights, and final cuts divided out.
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Another question asked by a lot of new pig growers is, “how do I know how heavy my hogs are?” Since I don’t own a livestock scale, and am not about to take our bathroom scale down to the pig pasture (much less get our pigs to stand on it!?), I used the tape measure method. I recorded their weights/measurements the night before their trip to the butcher, and ended up averaging only 3.5% off of the actual weight of each pig. Pretty accurate method if you ask me.

FORMULA – Girth x Girth x Body Length / 400 = Approx Hog weight.
Step 1 – Measure “C” to get the Girth. Just behind the front legs, all the way around the body. This is also called the Heart Girth, because the heart is located right in that area.
Step 2 – Measure AB, the Body Length. Start right between the ears, and measure down to the base of the tail. I found it worked best to get these measurements during feeding, as their heads are down and they could care less what I’m doing when there’s food in front of them. Also, fabric tape works best, the kind your mom had near her sewing table when you were young 🙂

Below is the data I recorded on our pigs. Knowing the percent of each cut, and the % yield were the two important numbers for me. Now we know what to expect and can plan better next year.
