A silly question about pork shoulders

[alberta pompei]

...Hola dot comrades.

Today I bought an 8 lb pork roast. It said whole picnic shoulder, and it was pretty inexpensive. I used the search feature to research this cut, but I could not find what I was looking for.

From what the search turned up, it implies that a whole shoulder contains a picnic, and a butt. I am now not quite sure if this roast is in fact a whole shoulder, or just the picnic. How does one tell ? I tossed the roast in the freezer and will smoke it up next weekend, weather permitting, and I am sure that I will have many more questions for when I do.

Thank you in advance for your replies.

Barry

[KyNola]

Barry,
Welcome to the forum.  If it weighs 8 pound it is not a whole shoulder unless that was one small pig.   I recently bought 8 shoulders and collectively they weighed 155 pounds.  My guess is you have a picnic. 

[hal4uk]

Welcome aboard, Barry!

A "whole" shoulder is indeed the picnic and the butt. 
You have a picnic.   Or a midget pig shoulder.  One or the other.

[Sailor]

Round here......98% of the time the picnic still has skin on.  It has a large bone in it too.  The butt will be mostly meat and will only have the shoulder bone.  I buy my butts at Costco and they are bone out.  I make mostly sausage and I don't have to fool around with de-boning them.