Abattoir Practices and Animal Products Technology

GRADING OF HOGS

• To assure that the U. S. grades for swine and pork are of maximum benefit to the industry, the grades for slaughter hogs are correlated directly with the grades for pork carcasses.
• Similarly, the grades for feeder pigs are also correlated with the grades for slaughter hogs.
• Thus a U. S. No. 1 slaughter hog, which in turn should produce a U. S. No. 1 carcass.
• Since sex condition has exerted little if any on secondary physical characteristics, barrows and gilts are treated as a single class, and the grade standards are equally applicable to both.
• The standards have not been made applicable to stags and boars, but a separate measurement standard has been made for sows.