Pigs produce pork and bacon cuts at different weights as they grow. A pork pig might weigh around 60 to 75 kilograms and left to gain weight for bacon it would reach around 90 to 120 kilograms. But how do you know when your pigs reach these weight ranges? In our case we don't have an expensive set of livestock scales and that challenge would be familiar to many smallholders today.
The answer lies in the following equation, courtesy of thepigsite.com:
- Measure the Heart Girth in metres (around the body of the pig behind its front legs
- Measure the Length of the pig in metres (from its ears to its tail)
- Square the Heart Girth to get the Girth Result
- Multiply the Girth Result by the Length and multiply that by 69.3
- The result is the weight of the pig in kilograms.
