The good old days…..

I sure wish we’d get back to the good old days when we could buy pork for $.79 to $.99 per pound. Last year I did, in fact, find the pork butts to make my sausage at $.99/pound but this past year has been a struggle to fish half decent prices on butts and loins. I found butts at $1.49/pound locally and bought 35 pounds to get my summer sausage and sticks done. I’m going to wait until after New Years and maybe see about getting enough to do pork brats and pork breakfast sausage. The breakfast I am putting up in 1-pound chubs. Stuffing those tiny and tender sheep casings sucks and the sausage tastes the same.

I know a few farmers who are under contract with either Hormel or the other big pork producer and none of them say they’re making any more money than from 6 years ago so it must be the middleman getting fat. If I had the immediate freezer space I’d go to one of these guys and buy a whole hog, pull the bellies, ribs and the loins for chops and make sausage from the rest of it.

When I found Butts for $1.29 I picked up 3 whole butts. I would guess it will add up to 45lbs once deboned. This week it will be cold enough for me to start processing. I like it to be cold out so I can set the grinder/stuffer/meat on the deck.

I’d be doing mine now too, but I have too much going on until after Dec 10th or so. I’m going to join a couple others on some super good deer ground for the muzzleloader season and help them fill tags. Normally I prefer to hunt alone, but one of these fellas has some heart issues and since I am generally in better health than he is I’ll do what I can to see to it he has some venison for the winter. I can still take a doe and will use my muzzy tag to fill that and give the critter to my grandson. He started a new job in late fall and has had a bad case of huntus interuptus and is sorely lacking venison to help feed his tribe.

I feel your pain. We too normally buy a bunch this time of the year. About $1.29 is the cheapest I have seen in a while now. The price of even making sausage keeps going up and up. Sheep casing have sky rocketed. Even some of the pre-mix seasonings are adding a buck a pound to the cost of snack sticks. Pretty sure we are not going to make nearly what we have in the past years.

Agreed, used to be pretty easy to find it for .99/lbs. but I don’t think anyone is getting fat on the new cheapest price. That’s probably just the new normal from an increase in gas, feed and wages to get it to the store.

it’s called corporate greed and is only going to get worse.

No trail cameras , no leases , no box blinds , just a group of guys out in orange doing deer drives killing deers . The only good old days I like talking about. Memory of my childhood I’ll never forget .

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At least in Southern MN, I think we are in “the good ol days” for whitetail hunting – at least in-terms of population. Way more deer around than when I was growing up, and we did alright back then too. But we’ve always been “meat-first” hunters and you’d never “pass” on a deer back then. Now I feel I have that luxury more often, I wish I could say the same for our friends up north.

ThunderLund78 wrote:

At least in Southern MN, I think we are in “the good ol days” for whitetail hunting – at least in-terms of population. Way more deer around than when I was growing up, and we did alright back then too. But we’ve always been “meat-first” hunters and you’d never “pass” on a deer back then. Now I feel I have that luxury more often, I wish I could say the same for our friends up north.

I’ve heard a lot of talk about deer densities here the southern third of the state regarding this last “A” season, even right here at IDO. Personally I have had no problem getting decent animals for doing my sausage and jerky and to provide some super good loins but what I have noticed are all the orphaned fawns. This year has been full of them starting with the opener on the 9th. We did a bit of a tour over to the river and back on Saturday and we saw one field that had 7 deer in it. All fawns. My thought’s? DNR mismanagement of the resource. $$$$$ over anything.

I could be wrong, but I think any lone fawn this time of year is going to be OK? Moms are usually pushing them off about this time of year anyway. I think the good part about the higher population is that I’m far more likely to let the does walk by. I might not have always done that, but the older I get, I too find myself being a bit sentimental when they’re standing right in front of me, licking each other and rubbing necks. I definitely avoid taking a doe if I can, especially if she has littles in-tow, but will do it in the waining hours of the season.

Anyway, that’s a topic for another thread. But deer hunting could be a lot worse in my area, and it has been within my lifetime.

phishingruven wrote:

it’s called corporate greed and is only going to get worse.

Its a little more complicated than just dismissing it as corporate greed.

If fuel prices, and wages are up, you have to expect that companies have little choice but pass that along to consumers.

Granted, the meat packing industry is a complicated affair: Unions, fuel prices, the daily stock indexes, packaging. Once the animal gets out of the feedlot a lot of things govern the shelf price.

A friend and I were yacking about this the other day and he thought as long at hams were beginning be kicked out by seasonal demends that pork shoulders should be in abundance. Picnic hams, those cured and smoked pork shoulders that are cheaper than a ham but equally as tasty, seem to have fallen by the wayside of late, but the home smokers have put a dent in the available shoulders they use for pulled pork, which is also a new commodity in the restaurant arena. So lots of things can affect the availability and cost of butts in the stores.

Next year I’m checking into the prices of a 50 pound lug or two of pork neck meat at a 60/40 or 70/30 lean to fat ratio. This should be less expensive since its at a wholesale price point. The neck meat is what many places that make thier own bratwurst use No boning, from the lug to the grinder then stuffer eliminates a lot of handling costs.

I don understand why you aint all getting yourselves some freezers and going out into the jungle and huntin your own pigs, and processing them and putting them in the freezers. Thats why them good old generations werent a bunch of slackers. Or weak. Or ugly. But for real 1.29 seems like a pretty good price nowdays. I dont do a lot of shoulders or grinding, but I do alot of country ribs because 10 years ago you could get them for .79 a pound,now its 2.29 and I think its not just inflation, no one was doing country ribs 10 years ago.

In one thread you got fellas arguing over Chinese pork and over-sea’s suppliers. In this you have fellas complaining about the cents/lb of pork. Get back to mowing your ditches!

Better yet, spend more money and get high quality, pasture raised protein. Couldn’t pay me to put $1/lb pork in my wild game.

I dont do a lot of shoulders or grinding, but I do alot of country ribs because 10 years ago you could get them for .79 a pound,now its 2.29 and I think its not just inflation, no one was doing country ribs 10 years ago. [/quote]

Those country ribs at the store are just cut shoulders that they mark up for the labor. You have to search high and low to find a true country style rib.

I usually take my trimmings in for processing, but my brother makes all his own sausages, with seasonings from different places. The cost of the pork is just part of the process but he is also leaving more and more of it bulk, no casings.

glenn57 wrote:

I usually take my trimmings in for processing, but my brother makes all his own sausages, with seasonings from different places. The cost of the pork is just part of the process but he is also leaving more and more of it bulk, no casings.

Me too, I just use it like hamburger and sometime set a few pounds aside for small batches of homemade sausage.

When I do my next batch of breakfast sausage it’ll go into the 1-pound chubs. Those sheep casings are the pits. I have a mess of pork casings for the bratwurst and they’re a whole lot nicer to work with than sheep casings so the brats will still go into them. Some sausage just does better in the chubs or what may be construed as bulk.

Sticks and summer and ring bologna need casings, so I’ll stuff them and not gripe. But those breakfast sausages in sheep casings are the pits so in part I’ll agree with the bulk stuff.

Jimmy Jones wrote:

When I do my next batch of breakfast sausage it’ll go into the 1-pound chubs. Those sheep casings are the pits. I have a mess of pork casings for the bratwurst and they’re a whole lot nicer to work with than sheep casings so the brats will still go into them. Some sausage just does better in the chubs or what may be construed as bulk.

Sticks and summer and ring bologna need casings, so I’ll stuff them and not gripe. But those breakfast sausages in sheep casings are the pits so in part I’ll agree with the bulk stuff.

I am sort of like you. Even my Old Fashion hot dogs are stuffed into brat casings. My breakfast sausage will all be bulk in one pound vac sealed bags. I did pick up some of Fraboni’s breakfast seasonings. Never tried it but I do like there links from Super One.

koldfront kraig wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>phishingruven wrote:</div>
it’s called corporate greed and is only going to get worse.

Its a little more complicated than just dismissing it as corporate greed.

If fuel prices, and wages are up, you have to expect that companies have little choice but pass that along to consumers.

those corporations are posting record profits every quarter, especially the oil companies. It is 100% greed.

and it’s going to get a lot worse.

The false economy that was experienced during Covid, is still being felt. Prices of most products were inflated… because of shortages and others because they could. Some is corporate greed, some is wages were adjusted up during that time and still some, the costs of raw products and transportation to produce are still up. New & Used Vehicles, which were hyperinflated are coming back down… slowly. Bad part is, the Union Workers were striking based on the prices of vehicles when they were inflated…now its hard to pay them wages when vehicle purchases are down.. people who overpaid just 2 or 3 years ago are buried in their current rides.

Don’t blame the Union workers entirely, the corporate dogs agreed to those terms and conditions also.

Back to the original post. If I was that concerned about the cost of pork or processing in general that’s probably the least expense in the grand scheme of hunting costs.

there were no actual shortages. just like the oil “shortage” of the 70’s. It was all corporate greed from the get go. Only now it’s worse than the 70’s as social media can influence the views of so many people.

buckle up kiddos.