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Martin County 104 Kehukee Park Road Williamston, NC 27892 (252) 789-4370 Phone (252) 789-4389 Fax MAP 
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At this point (after the hogs were gutted), most folks weighed the hogs. Although it wasn't mandatory and it meant handling the hogs again, this was an opportunity for some friendly competition. The idea was to see who could come closest to guessing the weight of each hog. We were not betting people, so I suppose the payoff was the esteem of your neighbors as a man having a good eye for estimating weights. At any rate, those of us who were not very good at guessing weights were always good for a laugh and a snide comment.
One little bit of mathematical trivia learned at the hog killing: if you had the weight of the hogs after gutting, you could estimate their weight "on the hoof" by adding back a fourth of that weight. Conversely, if you knew the weight of the hogs "on the hoof" you could estimate the gutted weight by subtracting a fifth of that weight. So far as I know this was pretty accurate for this specific purpose. That is, if the gutted weight for the hogs totalled 2,000 pounds then those hogs came very close to weighing 2,500 pounds "on the hoof" and vice versa. Exactly why and how that works (and it works with any number) would be a good math class project.
Revised 2/15/2006, 10/13/2011.
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