Saturday, May 6, 2017
Weighing a Pig Without a Scale
As regular readers of this blog are aware, I currently own two sows; both are pregnant and should farrow toward the middle or end of June. My purpose in raising these pigs is in order to start and maintain a reliable business selling lechon baboy.
According to my estimate, the piglets resulting from these pregnancies will be large enough for lechon around the middle of August. In the meantime, we're looking into buying live, lechon size pigs so we can begin selling the lechon before August. One of the things I'm looking to purchase next week is a digital scale for weighing the portions of lechon. There will come a time when I'll need to know the live weight of the pigs, but finding a scale large enough to weigh a full grown pig is a challenge.
Now, thanks to a website that I've stumbled upon, I can get a fairly accurate estimate of a pig's weight using a mathematical formula, a fabric measuring tape and a calculator. The website states that this procedure is reported to be accurate to within 3%.
From the website:
1 Obtain a fabric measuring tape or a piece of string to use as a measure. If using string mark the dimensions on the string and then measure the dimensions using a steel tape measure.
2 Place the tape/string under the pig just behind the front legs and measure the circumference of the pigs girth in inches. This measurement is known as the Heart Girth
3 Then measure the Length of the pig along its back from the base of its ears to the base of its tail, again in inches.
4 To calculate the pigs weight, first square the Heart Girth to get the Girth Result.
5 Now Multiply the Girth Result by the Length and DIVIDE by 400.
6 You now have the weight of your pig in Pounds.
The website also gives the formula for doing the procedure using the metric system.
For me, this a neat little trick.