A new project
What do boar taint and dog treats and ethical farming have in common?
For us, they are inexorably intertwined. As farmers highly concerned with our pigs’ overall welfare, we don’t take lightly our decision to ultimately kill and consume animals. Instead, we feel a deep responsibility to ensure our pigs’ lives are safe and fulfilling; and in death, that we utilize every part of the pig we can to honor that gift.
…..which led us to a problem when we considered how to utilize our retired boars (intact males). We retain our own gilts (young adult females) into our breeding herd, so to avoid inbreeding must phase out old boars when needed.
Our foundation boar, Harry.
Boar meat is generally not consumed in the US due to “boar taint” – a strong, unpleasant musk from two compounds, androstenone and skatole, that accumulate in intact males’ fat. Boar taint is somewhat nebulous: it varies on the individual, the breed of pig overall, its environment (pigs on pasture have been shown to have lower levels of boar taint), if the boar was removed from in-heat females for a period pre-butchering. However, Meishan boars reach sexual maturity much earlier than conventional breeds, meaning that these compounds are depositing in their system for a longer period of time. Boar taint has also not been specifically researched in Meishans, leaving us with very little data to work with. We ultimately realized that butchering our boar meat for human consumption carried too many risks: it could be completely unedible for some people, creating an obviously unpleasant experience that we would never wish any of our customers to experience. We would never now from one boar to the next, one customer to the next, if something in the process may go sideways.
Queenie, our hardworking Head of Quality Control & Taste Testing
Which led us to dog treats! Dehydrating our boar meat, and other lesser-used cuts like organs (liver, heart, etc.) into pet treats will allow us to utilize the whole pig, leaving little to waste. As big pet people and animal lovers, we’re excited to bring locally raised treats to our furry friends, with no fillers and no extra food miles. We’re deep in our experimentation phase of this project, dehydrating muscle meat and different organ meats, and finding the exact process to create the kind of treat we would want our own chocolate lab to have: chewy and flavorful, not too crunchy, and leads to lots of tail wagging. That said, our resident doggo, Queenie, has not complained a bit about any of the “oops” batches and has been more than happy to also put them to good use.
Although we’re still perfecting our process and working with the Department of Agriculture to develop compliant and informational labels for our treats, we’re so excited to see this project coming to fruition. Coming straight from our herd, these treats will be single ingredient Meishan pork, no fillers, no added ingredients, and from the same high-quality corn- and soy-free pork we provide our human customers. It’s a win for our ongoing sustainability goals and our furry friends.
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