npaden

Okay, my busy season at work is over and hopefully I will get a chance to kill a hog on my new property within the next couple weeks.

Previously all my big game hunting has been in Montana where 90% of the time the animal was gutted in the field and frozen solid in a few hours sitting in the back of the pickup.

I'm looking for advice on what I need to take into consideration when killing a hog in warmer weather and also on the main difference in how to treat a pig versus a deer. I've read lot's of contradictory information from boiling and scraping the hair off to skinning them just like a deer.

Right now here are my plans if I kill a medium sized pig.

1. Field dress the pig on the spot just like I would a deer.
2. Using a bone saw, cut the 2 rear quarters off the pig and then skin and de-bone and put in the cooler.
3. Remove the back straps.
4. Put remainder of carcass in front of a trail camera to see what comes and eats it.
5. Put ice in the cooler and keep it iced down for 48 hours.
6. When I get home cut the meat into thick steaks and package it and put it in the freezer.
7. Eat it.

Does this sound like a viable plan? Is there a lot of good meat elsewhere on the pig that I'm not thinking of?

If I shoot a little pig I will probably field dress it and put the entire thing in the cooler and maybe do the whole pig roast thing. When you do that what do you do with the hair? Scrape it off?

Thanks in advance for any comments or suggestions.

Nathan

falcon

In warm weather i try to get the hog to the butcher within a couple of hours.If that is not possible,i always call someone as soon as i kill the hog and have them get some bags of ice. i field dress the hog where it fell, fill the body cavity with bags of ice and get it to the butcher ASAP.If the animal cannot be gotten to the butcher until the next day it goes in my pickup box with more ice unless it is a big one.If it is a big one it goes into a huge wooden box with ice.

We usually have the hams made into steaks and lots of sausage madeup.

Getting the hair off a hog for a pig roast is kinda difficult.When we used to butcher in the winter we dunked the entire hog into a 55 gallon drum of boiling water and scrapedthe hairoff. i just let the butcher skin it.

A game animal can spoil very quickly when the temperature is over 80-90 degrees. OK elk bow season usually opens inearly Octoberwhich is much too early.Know a guy who did not havea planand his huge bull elk spoiledin about five or six hours.

Rebel Hog

npaden, the best thing to do is gut it and skin it. Try not to touch the flesh with the hair if possible.

When you have itgutted and skinned, the main thing is to keep the cavity as cool as possible. Either put all the cutsin the cooler with ice or buy ice bags and place in cavity orHang in walk-in-cooler.

Back in the 80's I bought a FrigBox off a wrecked foodtruck and used it as a Walk-In-Chiller-Box on my place. Iwould chillit for 3 days so it would be easier to make the cuts when butchering.


Now as for scraping the hair off. We started trapping in October thru November to butcher for the Xmas holidays. We had many Cubans, Jamaicans, Haitians, Dominicans and Asians who would order a whole pig, half a pig or hams for the holidays. Most all of these wanted the skin on it and some wanted the skin and head on it.

We had a 55gal drum with scalding water and we would soak the burlap sacks andscald the pigs with it. Remove the sacks and place back in the scalding water. Now, take the back edge of the butcher knife and scrape allthe hair off, if the pig cooled down, place the scalding sacks back on them again and keep scraping the hair off until all the hair is off. Now dip a pot in the scaldingwater, pour on the pigand scrub the skin with a good scrubbing brush. Hose down real good to wash all the hair away from the table.The skin will be good andwhite.

Now is the time to gut and butcher using the hose and constatly washing it down. I sugguest you have some rubber boots on!

npaden

Thanks for the replies so far.

I don't plan on dropping it off at a butcher. We always butchered our own deer so I feel like I have a decent handle on that part of it.

I was thinking by getting the hams off and deboned I would be able to get them cooled down faster than trying to stuff the entire pig full of ice. On a smaller pig just putting the bag of ice inside the pig sounds like it would work pretty well though. Hunting them at night probably will be a plus as it will be in the mid 70's probably the next few weeks. That also reminds me that I will need to bring a light to hang up while I'm cutting it up.

Do I need to put the meat in plastic bags to keep it from sitting in water as the ice melts?

Thanks, Nathan

Rebel Hog

I personally have never soaked the meat in Ice Water, but there are people who do soak the meat in Ice Water & Vinegar over night!

Southern Hog Hunting

What I normally do is place the hog in a ice chest and completely cover it with ice. Pull the plug on the ice chest and let the ice melt for 2 days and let the water drain. Just keep the pig covered and you will not have to worry about taste problems either.

Rebel Hog

Yep! Have done that also........If I'm going to stayat the hunting camp for 14 days or longer, I take an oldChest type freezerplaced horizontal in front of a 10' lawn mower trailerwithtwo or three blocks of Dry Ice in it. I place a home made metal rack so it just clears the blocks and place thegame meat on it.

The last time I went to Colorado we were there for 10days and this was the set up we had. We had the meat of twoElk and 3 mulies in the chest freezer. The blocks of Dry Ice I bought here in FL and returned with them and kept the meat of one Elk and one Muliein it on the trailer for another week here at my place.

SomersetArchery

I've only shot a couple of boars, but I kept 100% of the meat from both. It was all good pork, even the front shoulders. If any of it seemed to tough, it got ground up.

Kev

burniegoeasily

I will age all my wild pork in a cooler full of ice water. Ill do it for up to 5 days. Keep lots of ice on it, drain the water everyday. It will help clean out the meat and help keep you from getting a gamey taste. I started doing it that way about 8 years ago and can tell a big difference.

Hog Killer

let the meat sit in a cooler of ice for about a week and continue to drain the water off and add new ice. This will allow more of the blood to come out of the meat and won't have such a gamey taste.