Homestead Kitchen - The Frugal Homestead

Cooking Pork Hocks

You might also be interested in reading my post How to Cook with a Wood Stove.

Locally Raised Pork

We no longer purchase our meat from the grocery store. All of our poultry is raised at home and we buy grass-fed beef and naturally raised pork from local farmers. I do occasionally pick up a few packages of brats (we are outside of Chicago, after all) from the local butcher. I love knowing that our meat comes from small local farmers.

Do you use pork hocks and other 'scrap cuts?' What do you do with bones? Seriously, any suggestions for grinding bones to feed to my chickens? I've been thinking about that for a long time.

12 Comments on “Cooking Pork Hocks

  1. Use the bones to make bone broth. You should get two batches out of them. Making bone broth makes the bones soft and mushy. Easy to grind. Good luck!

    1. Hi Ruth,
      The hocks were not smoked. I have a pressure canner, which can be used as a pressure cooker, but I haven’t used it for that yet. I’ll have to think about trying that. Thanks for the suggestion!

  2. I think its a great idea. Chickens will eat anything, alive or dead, the ground bone meal could work well in the garden I’d bet.

    1. My thoughts exactly, Margie! Only problem is, I haven’t found a way to grind them up. I tried smashing them with a hammer…let’s just say that it wasn’t my best idea ever. 😉

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.