Goodbye Ermine

Ermine was the eldest of our breeding sow’s, a pedigree British Saddleback with a long back. She gave us one litter but then subsequently failed to get pregnant. We concluded she must have become infertile. With pigs this will almost certainly be the case if there is too long a gap since their last pregnancy. An annual litter is perhaps the most you might get away with.

Keeping an adult pig with no return is an expensive business (none of our livestock are kept as pets) so, alas, it was time for her to go. 

Our usual abattoir, small and friendly, has closed down, an all too frequent fate of small, local abattoirs who find the slaughter business increasingly uneconomic to remain viable. The one we used is also a locally acclaimed butcher so they are still otherwise in business. The irony is that small abattoirs find the animal welfare regulations too costly to keep up with and implement, especially if they have been long established and the buildings ageing. But one consequence of their diminishing numbers is that livestock have to be transported far longer distances and often to larger operators that maybe have a less personal touch.

For Ermine this meant a trip to Eye in mid-Suffolk. This is an abattoir we have been quite happy with so far, but they don’t do the butchering. Her carcass was then delivered to Bramfield in East Suffolk from where we picked up the finished meat. She was too old for pork joints so we now have significant quantities of sausages, mince, sausage meat and diced pork from the best bits. 

Ermine with nephew and hen