# So, tell me about preparing/eating wild hog



## jen74145 (Oct 31, 2006)

DH has taken up archery, and has become pretty darn good. He's itching to go for a real hunt (I insist he carry more than just his bow for that, so don't fret) and has a buddy with a few hundred acres and a serious hog problem who is more than happy to have him come remove one or two of the destructive things.

My question is... does it taste like regular pork, or is there a gamey flavor? Special things about preparing it I should know? Methods of cooking? General info?


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## big rockpile (Feb 24, 2003)

I've only killed twne was a Young Gilt,not too much Fat and what there was ,was very different than a tame Hog.She was good.

Then I killed an old Boar.He tasted ok but was very tuff,so we slow cooked him and ground some.

big rockpile


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## susieM (Apr 23, 2006)

Very good as jerky


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## tn_junk (Nov 28, 2006)

I actually like it better than "tame" pork. To me it has more flavor. A friend of mine bowhunts and went after hogs few years ago. Shot one and said it sounded like the arrow hit solid wood when it hit the hog. He never did find it.

galump


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## foxfiredidit (Apr 15, 2003)

Cook it just like your regular pork. You won't be disappointed.
One thing,
Tell your DH that a hog needs to be field dressed immediately and put on ice as very soon as possible. This is the key to great tasting wild hog........especially when the weather is warm.


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## sleeps723 (Sep 10, 2006)

i just got 2 this afternoon, babies about 6 weeks old. i dont think they like me.


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## Raptor (Aug 29, 2005)

If he has never hunted hogs he needs to carry a backup weapon,large bore. Feral hogs in Texas are nothing to mess with.


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## Jolly (Jan 8, 2004)

To each his own, but I don't care for the boar hogs we have in the woods around here, not unless they are very young.


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## OkieDavid (Jan 15, 2007)

For me, they HAVE to be young (nothing heavier than 50-70lb). Also, I don't eat them this time of year. They are making a pretty good living out there on dead and diseased animals (skunks, oppossums, armadillos, *****, rabbits etc..) right now. Wild pigs will eat anything they can catch.Tell hubby to use a greater level of caution while gutting them than he might while gutting a deer. If he has to do the picture taking while holding the mouth open....glove up. If he wants to do the picture thing before gutting.....re-glove before gutting. Don't want to scare you but I would like you to be informed. As to preparing, wild hog is quite a bit leaner than domestic hog so it tends to dry out faster making it tougher. Common around here is to do like Sleeps723 and catch the young ones and feed them out on corn. A lot less risk and better tasting. 

David


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## sleeps723 (Sep 10, 2006)

i will butcher mine in the fall when i have 3 or 4 really cold days in a row


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## J. Knife (Jul 22, 2007)

Jen75145,

Hog, especially a female or a young one under 200Lbs,
are good meat except they are full of worms. 
The blood and guts of Hog is full of other evil little critters too,
and you must wear gloves when butchering Hog.
The 'evil little critters',
will get through your pores and into your blood.
They are good at it, thats all they do,
'a big ole pore, sure, 
'come on y'all'.

If you butcher Hog without gloves on,
there are 10 things you could get, 
all bad, wear gloves,
till the meat is washed and soaked in cool salty water.
Swine Brucillosis comes to mind.

The meat is good, put a leg or a backstrap on a smoker 5-6 hours, rubbed down with spices. It will be the best meat you ever ate, but for the knowledge that it is full of cooked out worms, 
but it is alright they don't show.


jacksknifeshop.tripod.com


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## Crpdeth (Jul 20, 2007)

I've personally never heard of this big worm problem, but then I only hunt/trap in deep winter (if you can call it that here in Tx), and I've never worn gloves while undressing my game...The reason is, for some reason I start getting really warm through the process...My coverall's, gloves, ect will be taken off, even in the sleet/snow, even with my shaved head.  

I definately ice it down, in a cooler, leaving the drain plug open and the cooler tilted just to kinda wash the meat down a little more as the ice melts...I've had traps with five hogs in them so some processing times become lenghty.

Methods of cooking...Jen all I can say is that I use it just like store bought meats...The ground meat is great in chili, soups, spaghetti, Mexican casserole, stroganoff... just anything that ground beef is good for. The backstrap (posion sacks) are butterflied and fried very slowly in evoo, in a skillet. 

A lot of my roasts are slow cooked with potatoes and all those goodies, or slow smoked in the off set pit, then moved to the crockpot to be covered in BBQ sauce for pulled pork sammies.

The ribs (if he bothers with them) are great on the smoker, or cut with a band saw and placed in the crockpot.

Smoked sausage links make a freaking wonderfull snack/appetizer with fresh jalapeno slices and sharp cheddar cheese.

Hope he has good luck out there!

Crpdeth


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## TedH71 (Jan 19, 2003)

All feral animals have worms. You have to worm them while they're alive to get rid of the worms but if you hunt them, rest assured there are worms and internal parasites. ALWAYS! Cooking kills off most of 'em.


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## Crpdeth (Jul 20, 2007)

Ted, in re-reading this I see that I came off as unbelieving, it isan't that I didn't believe J knife at all...I just never heard of a "problem".

I hunt with several different men, a total of our hunting years would be hard to guess, but I've never sat around the campfire and heard any of them discussing the dangers of not wearing gloves while undressing wild game...Heck, we've rinsed our hands off (up to our bloody elbos) in streams and ponds countless times and called it good.

Again...not doubting what was said, just never heard of people getting worms in their blood stream by handeling it.

I will occasionally wear a glove that came from a slaughter house that helps if your buddy slaps you across the hand with his blade while "helping" you strip the game down, but thats about it. 

Crpdeth


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## Micahn (Nov 19, 2005)

All threw high school a buddy and I would go out and get a hog a month or so and have a big party. We would supply the meat and others could bring the beer and what ever else they wanted.
After a while we got a deal from a butcher, He would keep 1/4 of the hob and give us the other 3/4 however we wanted it. He made some killer sausage.

Like others have said the smaller the better most times. Some times we would catch a bigger one alive and put it in a pen and corn feed it for a couple of months. That would take out a lot of the game taste plus add some fat into it.
But even then if it was to big say over 300 lbs or so it was not worth the trouble it seemed to us so we stopped taking anything over say 250 lbs.

We always found that a good 12 hour or so slow cook was best way to do it. We would mix a few cans of beer with some salt and other things and baste it every now and then as well.


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## jen74145 (Oct 31, 2006)

Wow.. thanks all!
And yes, he'll definitely be taking a rifle with him; that's what's holding him back right now, he's hoping to get one this month. I've heard stories of what those nasty things can do and would wring his neck if he even thought about just taking the bow. :nono: 

And yep, smaller ones. He's not so much into the "trophy" aspect, more the freezer-filling side of things. I'd been thinking about using most of the guts as dog food, what would I need to discard? I would prefer to feed it raw (and so would the dogs) but if I should cook it so they don't get some nasty parastie or trichinosis, I can do that too. Thoughts?


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## WolfWalksSoftly (Aug 13, 2004)

I'm glad this was posted. I have been asked to help a friend thin out on his farm, and have never tasted feral hog before. I'm looking forward to doing this.


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## cowgirlone (May 9, 2002)

Can ferel hogs be cooked just like a domestic one, or do you have to prepare the meat differently before cooking?

I know Tango raises wild hogs, but her's are raised in captivity. I was just wondering about ones raised in the wild.

Would they cook well on a cinderblock pit? Low and slow?


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## brownegg (Jan 5, 2006)

cowgirlone, now that looks good. Soon as i finish my beer I'll have a big chunk of loin.
Did I hear you say Supper is ready?

brownegg


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## OkieDavid (Jan 15, 2007)

Haven't been back and re-visited this post in a while. I should say for the record that I only glove up on hogs. Everything else from fish to Deer is done with bare hands. The reason for gloves has nothing to do with worms (for me anyway). The danger comes from the following scenerio; Picture a young hog coming across either a dead rabid **** or diseased armadillo carrying leprosy and eats it (trust me...they will)...Along comes hunter and gets a nice close range double lung shot. Hog blood is now flowing over the teeth and throughout the chest cavity possibly contaminated by whatever was in said hog's mouth or esophagus.....Proud hunter poses with trophy and MUST show off the decent tusks which require you to hold the hogs mouth open. An accidental exposure through either a cut finger, briar scratched arm and you have a good potential of exposure to some real nasties...Say you choose to stay away from the mouth and simply gut the hog. Remember the esophagus? Even if the shot didn't cut it, YOU will when gutting thus allowing the blood to mix with whatever was in the esophagus and flows back into the chest cavity. A careless slip of the knife or scrape from a rib and there you have it. Like I said- Deer, rabbit, squirell etc..don't phase me and I gut them bare handed but I take extra care with something that eats anything.......Once the gutting is done, head removed and rinsed out well- off come the gloves. Not trying to scare anyone.....just be careful. Doubt what I say?? Ask your local meat processor. Ours almost lost his life due to a nasty blood poisoning incident and will no longer take feral hogs unless they've been fed out in a pen for six weeks.

David


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## cowgirlone (May 9, 2002)

brownegg said:


> cowgirlone, now that looks good. Soon as i finish my beer I'll have a big chunk of loin.
> Did I hear you say Supper is ready?
> 
> brownegg


I'll hold that beer for you while you get a chunk.


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## Pops2 (Jan 27, 2003)

Cowgirlone
yes they are deliscious that way, if not enough fat you may need to pile some on or baste.


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## cowgirlone (May 9, 2002)

Thanks for the info Pops2. 

We don't have any in the wild in my area of Oklahoma, but I'm hoping I get to try them sometime.


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## TedH71 (Jan 19, 2003)

Yes, there are hogs in your neck of the woods. When I entered Oklahoma from I-35...first thing I saw was a dead 400 lb feral hog on the side of the highway. Apparently a car had slammed into a herd of hogs and the car happened to hit the biggest one. The rest fled. The car was totalled. Granted, most of them are in SE Oklahoma but we now have them in 20 counties of KS...including a herd about 20 miles away from Wichita, KS where I live. Sooner or later, most of OK will have wild hogs. Just a matter of time.


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## cowgirlone (May 9, 2002)

Ted, I'm way out by the panhandle.
We don't have any yet, but I bet it won't be long before they get out this way. 
I'm going to have my cooker ready.


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## TedH71 (Jan 19, 2003)

I have a friend who lives in Lubbock. He hunts hogs and says there are hogs but they tend to be runners than fighters due to lack of vegetation in the area. He also said that there aren't too many hogs either but the ones that are left over are really tough boogers to kill.


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## Crpdeth (Jul 20, 2007)

CowGirl

I really like that pit...Crude and effective.

I use an off set smoker, but I'm sitting here wondering where, in my back yard, I should build a pit like that.  I would also offer that "low and slow" is the only way to fly. I just finished a shoulder roast on the smoker (three hours in the smoke, two hours in foil, and one hour in the ice chest covered in blankets to cool) then straight to the crockpot with the natural juices and BBQ sauce on low for about 12 hours for pulled pork sammies, for the guys at work...Turned out pretty dang good.

Now where did I see that stack of cinder blocks around here....hmmmmm  


Crpdeth


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## cowgirlone (May 9, 2002)

Crpdeth, you're making me hungry.


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## Crpdeth (Jul 20, 2007)




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