Buying direct
Because you get better pork, more of it, for less per pound — raised on one farm and cut exactly how you like it. Here's how it works, start to freezer.
Most folks ask the same thing first: isn't that a lot of pork, and is it worth it?
Short answer — yes, it's a freezer's worth, and yes, it's worth it. Buying a whole or half hog is the oldest, most honest way to buy meat: you get the whole animal from one farm, at one fair price, cut to your liking. Here's why people do it, and everything you'd want to know before you reserve one.
One farm, forest-fed and pastured — not anonymous pork from four states and a feedlot.
Everything from tenderloin to chops comes at one blended price — usually well under buying those cuts separately.
Fresh belly, real leaf lard, hocks, jowl, and bones for stock. The whole hog, nose to tail.
You choose chop thickness, roast sizes, how much sausage, and whether to smoke the bacon and hams.
Months of good meat in a single trip — fewer grocery runs, always something in the freezer.
Your order is what makes forest-raising possible. Buying direct is the whole model.
The big question
Three numbers get used, and they trip people up. Here's what each one means.
A half hog is simply half of that — roughly 65–75 lb of packaged meat. Exact poundage varies with the pig and your cut sheet: choose more boneless, lean cuts and it drops a little; keep bone-in roasts and it stays higher.
Before you reserve
A good rule of thumb: about 1 cubic foot holds 35–40 lb of packaged meat.
What you get
One hog becomes a whole range of cuts. Here's where they come from.
Boston butt and picnic — slow-roast, pull, or grind into sausage and ground pork.
The prime center of the hog — your chops (cut to the thickness you like) and the tenderloin.
Cured and smoked into bacon, or kept fresh — plus a rack of spare ribs.
Your choice: fresh ham roasts, ham steaks, or cured and smoked into a proper holiday ham.
Ham hocks for beans, jowl bacon, leaf lard for rendering, and bones for stock.
Trim becomes breakfast sausage, brats, or whatever seasoning you pick — your call.
It's a simple form where you tell us and the butcher your preferences: chop thickness, roast sizes, how much to grind into sausage, whether to smoke the bacon and hams, and which seasonings. First time? We'll walk you through it, or you can just say "the usual" and we'll set you up with a great all-around mix.
Fair & simple
Bulk pork is usually priced per pound of hanging weight, plus the processor's cut-and-wrap fee — or, sometimes, as one simple flat price. Either way you're buying farm-direct, and the blended cost per pound typically lands below what comparable pastured cuts run at retail, because you're taking the whole animal, not just the premium pieces.
A deposit reserves your hog; the balance comes due around processing, once the final weight is known. You pick up your neatly wrapped, labeled, frozen order and fill the freezer.
Quick answers
For a couple or small family, a half is often close to a year's worth of pork. If that still feels like a lot, splitting a half with a friend is easy — many people start exactly that way.
Absolutely — splitting a whole into two halves with family or a friend is the most common way people do their first one. You each get your own cut preferences.
Properly wrapped and frozen, your pork holds at best quality for about a year — well within the time it takes most families to enjoy it.
Yes. Your hog is processed at a USDA-inspected facility, then professionally cut, vacuum-wrapped, labeled, and frozen before it comes to you.
Not for a half — a cleared-out standard freezer usually does it. For a whole, a small chest freezer (5–7 cu ft) is the easy answer, and it pays for itself fast if you buy this way regularly.
We're raising our first hogs now, and reservations will open as they approach finishing. Join the list and we'll send the date — list members get first pick.
First pick
Join the list and you'll be first to see pricing, reserve a whole or half, and follow along as we raise them.
Join the list