It is getting hot and a lot of us hunt hogs in hot weather. For me it is the best time: Go to a pond, climb into into a tree stand and wait.

In this part of the country a lot of hog meat is ruined in hot weather because it not properly cared for. Have heard a lot of complaints about "strong tasting" hog meat. In most cases the "strong tasting" animal was a young boar or a sow. It wasn't "strong", it was rotten.

Hog meat is not improved by hanging. It spoils rather quickly even in cool weather.

When the temperature is 80 degrees or so one has 4-5 hours to get that hog cooled down after killing it. At 90 degrees one has about 3-4 hours to get the hog cooled down or cut up and put into a cooler.

Most of my hog hunting is within 15 miles of home. The hog is gutted as soon as it is retrieved. There are several gallons of water in the truck to rinse out the hogs body cavity. At home the hog is hung up, washed down with a water hose and then put into a big cooler with ice. It is taken to the butcher ASAP.

Be especially diligent in cleaning the body cavity of a hog that has been gut shot. If you take whole hogs to a butcher make sure he is reliable. A hog will start togo badif left inthe coolerfor a week.

Ameat processor in this area now requires that any hog brought in for butchering be gutted and skinned. This is due to complaints of bad meat from guyswho brought in hogs that were not gutted and/or properly cared for.Guys were bringing in whole hogs that had been killed the day before and expecting the butcher to do miracles.

Yep, i am an exception:He will take my unskinned hogs because they are field dressed and squeaky clean.

Thanks for the info! I always take mine to the skinning rack immediately. And as I'm cleaning it, I'm chucking the meat straight into the ice chest.

I was given a bit of advice for hogs from a friend. He said to have a few gallon or half gallon water bottles frozen and in the cooler so once you gut the hog you can put the frozen jugs in the cavity of the hog to help cool it down until you can get it home to properly clean it and process it.

i'm sure this will prove to be great advice if i ever see another hog.

Heat's the enemy, cool it asap. I learned that the hard way. I was taught that you "have" to age deer before butchering. That's fine in the winter but deer killed during the early bow season never tasted right. The old timers used to say that the deer still had parasites when the weather was warm that you have to wait until the first hard freeze before you kill a deer. They were wrong, it was just rotten. One time I went to butcher a deer that I killed about five days earlier only to find that the body cavity was full of maggots. From then on I never aged anything, and the meat never tasted better. Skin it, quarter it, and get it on ice. Keep it colduntilyou're ready to butcher it.

I made a larger than normal ice chest 4' long X 30" wide X 24" deep...out of wood styrofoam and 20ga sheetmetal...
works really good for tossing hogs into...right after they have been butchered out.

So you were trying to age the meat in hot weather?

I was a teanager doing what I was told. It wasn't "hot" but maybe 40 at night and mid 50's during the day. If it can spoil at that temp I can onlyimagine how quicka hogspoils in summer.

I hear ya. It never gets cold enough to outdoor age meat here and I don't have access to a walk-in cooler. So I try to "age" my meat in a cooler. I just keep in on ice for 3-4 days, draining the water and adding ice every day.