Pig harvest

[DaveS]

Here's the situation. Last night, about 30 minutes before dark, I arrowed a Feral Hog. We blood trailed him, and about 9:00 we were walking a cornfield with flashlights, when we heard a hog grunt and crash through the standing corn, we decided to call off the search (wounded hog thing you know) until morning. This morning, we get back to the area and pick up the hog's trail. We found him at about 10:30. He was in the cornfield under some cockleburr bushes. We dressed him out and submerged him in a creek to cool the meat as best as we could. One of our party went after some ice, and we finally got hime packed with ice, placed on the deer cart fo the long trip back out of the woods. We don't know what time the pig actually died, but parts of him were cool and parts still warm. Coyotes were in the area last night, but never messed with him (although coyote tracks were imposed over our boot tracks from last night). He smalls like a typical Male hog...kinda gamey! My question to any "pig hunters" out there is, other than mounting him as a trophy, should he be ok to eat, or should me dispose of him? This is my first pig harvest ever, so I don't know. We even had no clue feral hogs were in the area that we've been hunting for a few years until this 200lb solid black sucker shows up under my stand! What a shock! The land we were hunting (federal), hogs are legal. I need some advice!

WD (Dave)

[Guest GunTroll]

Man on those things I like to be picky with what I take. Coming from Ft. Stewart GA, I use to shoot em' and give em' away minus one ham. Certain people down there jumped all over em' (hint hint). I feel its a judgement call for your situation. Grind it up and make some sausage.

[Guest TnDeerHunter]

+1 on the sausage We kill several on our lease in South Carolina each year. If yotes were in the area and didn't bother him I would tend to think he lived through the night still it's going to be a judgement call.

[Buzzard217]

It didn't sit in the heat of the day, I think it'll be ok. Cut the loins off and grind the rest as sausage.

[DaveS]

No, he didn't sit through the heat of the day. I surely like the sausage idea. Maybe some brats!

[whiskey]

Hopefully you don't have it in the freezer yet. If you do not, then pack it in ice in a cooler for a few days. Twice a day drain the bloody water off and add ice as needed. Keep this up until the water runs clear. You should not have any bad taste left in the meat, except in the soft fat. Wild boars have bad tasting soft fat, so remove all you can before and after cooking.

If you do have it frozen, just do the process above when thawing. You can add a cup of vinegar to aid the process. Just a cup though.

If the meat smells ok, then I would eat it. It was cool here last night and if he was still alive at 9pm then I would guess he would be fine to eat.

PM me when you get ready to cook it. I have some good recipes.

Jason

[DaveS]

No he is not frozen yet. He has been quartered out and packed in the "beer fridge" in the shop. I'm getting ready to rotate the meat around. Do I need to Ice it? I'ts pretty cold in the fridge right now. The meat smells fine, except for that typical male hog smell that you even have with a domestic pig.

[ShaunM]

As long as the meat is real cold and you plan on cutting it up for the freezer or taking it to the butcher real soon you should be fine.

[whiskey]

Dave, the icing just helps "wash" the blood out of the meat. I have bleed deer in the fridge for up to a week with good results. I have always just iced wild pigs to get all the blood out.

I have been told by the old Florida swamp crackers that I hunted with down there, that the longer it takes for the boar to die, the more hormones he will pump through his body and the stronger the meat will be. I have killed some stinky old boars and the icing always took care of that for me. I have never eaten any boar meat that tasted any different than big sow meat if it were iced.

I always just quarter mine and then smoke the quarters. If you have a good butcher, then sausage would be a good choice too.

[Guest GunTroll]

I heard something mildly alarming on Rick and Bubba the other day about some disease that is blood born. They say you are fine to eat the meat but don't get any uncooked blood directly into your system. They stressed the importance of wearing gloves when gutting/butchering. I wish I could be a little less vague for you but some people are getting sick in AL from this evidently.

[DaveS]

I heard a similiar thing also. Can't remember the name though. I'm in the process of mounting his head, and all of the fleshing work so far is with the use of latex gloves. I'll continue to use gloves anytime I need to handle raw skin and flesh. Thanks for the heads up!

[Ropin4gold]

You should be alright to eat it. I would try the ice trick.