"In the past I did my taste testing post slaughter by eating progressively older boars to test them for taint but that makes it rather hard to then breed the pigs. That method isn’t going to work with the new Berkshire breeder boar Spitz who we aquired this month. I don’t want to slaughter him to taste him nor do I want to take the two years that we did to prove out the genetics in the past by tasting the offspring.
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So how to do it? How to have your pig and eat it too? I suggested that I simply take a small bite and see what he tasted like.
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With wildlife, biologists routinely take small biopsies. There are special tools made for doing just this. I bought a set and a biopsying I went. Ironically, I got my biopsy tools from a tattoo, body art and piercing store. These are medical, human grade, stainless steel tools so I figured they would work well enough for the boars.
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Both Spitz, the new Berkshire boar, and Hamlet, the new Tamworth boar, didn’t object to the sampling. They’re pretty big boys and I was only taking a 12 cubic-mm sample from their back fat over their lumbar vertebrae, e.g., loin a.k.a. middle of the lower back. I had been prepping them for this day for well over a week by training them to accept the movements I would do to take the biopsy. To them it probably felt like getting a shot at most. I slapped the biopsy spot as I took the sample and I suspect that distraction was more noticeable than the actual biopsy. Penn & Teller would be proud."
https://sugarmtnfarm.com/2012/03/23/have-your-pig-and-eat-it-too/
...
So how to do it? How to have your pig and eat it too? I suggested that I simply take a small bite and see what he tasted like.
...
With wildlife, biologists routinely take small biopsies. There are special tools made for doing just this. I bought a set and a biopsying I went. Ironically, I got my biopsy tools from a tattoo, body art and piercing store. These are medical, human grade, stainless steel tools so I figured they would work well enough for the boars.
...
Both Spitz, the new Berkshire boar, and Hamlet, the new Tamworth boar, didn’t object to the sampling. They’re pretty big boys and I was only taking a 12 cubic-mm sample from their back fat over their lumbar vertebrae, e.g., loin a.k.a. middle of the lower back. I had been prepping them for this day for well over a week by training them to accept the movements I would do to take the biopsy. To them it probably felt like getting a shot at most. I slapped the biopsy spot as I took the sample and I suspect that distraction was more noticeable than the actual biopsy. Penn & Teller would be proud."
https://sugarmtnfarm.com/2012/03/23/have-your-pig-and-eat-it-too/