How many of you dress and cook the hogs you kill?

some_guy

New Member
New to the world of feral hogs. Had some loin and sausage a few years back it was pretty good. My nephew kills some hogs down around Austin. He doesn't go anywhere near the meat.

How many of you dress out your own hogs as opposed to a service?

How many of you eat your kills?

Some people say it's more trouble and risk than it's worth. Others say finger licking good!

What say you?
 

der Teufel

Livin' the Dream …
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My buddy & I take the leg quarters and back straps from most of the hogs we kill. The big ones become ground meat or sausage while the smaller ones go into soup, stew, or various entrees.
 

jglass

LSB Member
The only wild hogs that don't get butchered are the ones that ran off wounded into the jungle. We take them back to the RV Resort and have a hog roast or cook them in slow cookers with different seasoning. I found people in the area that are glad to have a fresh killed hog so I give away some of the hogs. Some of the guys I hunt with, cut the hogs in quarters then freeze them and take them back home to Michigan for a wild hog roast during the summer.

The best hogs for roasting are in the 75 lb range give or take. We butchered a 200 lb boar that I shot and I will not do that again. They are tough and gamey smelling and tasting. Although some of the people seasoned the wild boar until the wild taste was gone and it was pretty good. I gave one woman a hog roast and she boiled it inside her RV. She said it smelled terrible but continued to seasoning and slow cooking and said it was quite good. All depends how determined you are to eat the wild hog. If a fresh killed wild hog just plain stinks it is probably not worth dressing in my experience. Hogs left in the jungle are consumed in just a couple of days by local predators, they need to eat to.

We roasted and smoked a 60 hog in a large roasting oven over charcoal and hard wood smoking chips and it was better than any store bought hog I ever ate. I have 3 or 4 friends from upstate New York state. They grind all their will hog meat into sausage and it is quite
good.

We always wear rubber gloves when butchering a wild hog. We skin and trim away the hide, then drop it into a large trash bag. We leave the intestines out in the jungle and they disappear in 8 hours.
 
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der Teufel

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… I gave one woman a hog roast and she boiled it inside her RV. She said it smelled terrible but continued to seasoning and slow cooking and said it was quite good. All depends how determined you are to eat the wild hog.
Years (decades) ago an uncle gave my mother some feral hog meat. She cooked some of it and said it stunk up the kitchen! She gave the rest to her sister-in-law in Louisiana who said she solved that problem by cooking it outside!
Seriously, when I cook ground hog meat it starts out with a somewhat off-putting odor. But, if you pay attention, ground beef has a similar odor it's just nowhere near as strong. In both cases it goes away as the meat cooks. By the time the meat is cooked and seasoned, it's fine by my standards.
 

chthump

LSB Member
We kill hogs, and hunt meat, its more for eradication, than filling the freezer. Eaten a few, but 98% are left for the MAF.
 

Mel Glass

LSB Member
SUS VENATOR CLUB
We normally clean all we kill and hand them out to people in need of meat. If a boar is to rank we feed the coyotes. Had to toss a sow this weekend that had been shot by someone before. Wound was healed over but had maggots in the meat under the hide. Nasty surprise. I don’t kill anywhere near the amount of hogs that a lot of people on here kill. Normally put the knife to 50-60 a year.
 

znztivguy

LSB Member
Marinate them in my secret Korean based sauce..... Meat basil pepper sausage......yum....
 

bar-d

Head Wrangler, Chief Manure Manager: Bar-D Cattle
My son in law and I used to cook a few small ones @ Christmas time. I had a big trailer mounted smoker and we would feed a lot of family and friends. Life has gotten in the way of the Christmas whing ding and we don't do it any longer. Kinda miss doing it, mesquite fire in the smoker and a cold beer for the cook. If times get hard enough, I dang sure know how to utilize the resource, otherwise I feed the coyotes.
 

Schneeky

LSB Member
LoneStarBoars Supporter
Had a hog sausage breakfast burrito just a few mins ago. Bigguns get sausaged, littluns get cut up for the smoker.
This year the bigger boars will go on the coyote bait pile, tho'. d;^)
 

FrankT

Destin FL
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you need to brine them in saltwater to clean the meat and have no odor, there is a thread in tips and tricks
 

ScottJ

LSB Member
I eat them. Big ones, little ones, clean ones, muddy ones... and boars you can smell 50 yards away. All have tasted good to great. I bring large coolers with at least 20 lbs of ice, and a few smaller coolers. As soon as I can, after the pig(s) are down, I get to work. Keep it clean and put the meat on ice. When I'm done hunting for the night, drain the cooler (the ice turned to bloody water) and refill with fresh water. Slosh it around and drain. Repeat. Then drain and cover all the meat with ice and a few handfuls of salt. I keep adding ice as needed and some salt for 3-5 days, depending on how long my hunting trip is.
 

olde sarge

New Member
I eat them. Big ones, little ones, clean ones, muddy ones... and boars you can smell 50 yards away. All have tasted good to great. I bring large coolers with at least 20 lbs of ice, and a few smaller coolers. As soon as I can, after the pig(s) are down, I get to work. Keep it clean and put the meat on ice. When I'm done hunting for the night, drain the cooler (the ice turned to bloody water) and refill with fresh water. Slosh it around and drain. Repeat. Then drain and cover all the meat with ice and a few handfuls of salt. I keep adding ice as needed and some salt for 3-5 days, depending on how long my hunting trip is.
Scott that is exactly what we have done for years. Even just keeping fresh ice and water for 3-5 days will help if for some reason salt is not available, to a lesser degree.
 

Bakester

LSB Active Member
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LoneStarBoars Supporter
The big ones stay where they lay. I'll sometimes take the medium and small ones to a local that really appreciates it.
 

Jhop

LSB Active Member
SUS VENATOR CLUB
I normally just take the back straps from the pigs I kill. However, I don't mess with the ones that smell really bad or the sows that have milk.
 

Mattg1500

LSB Member
I make sausage and cut up the rest, ribs, loins etc. A dozen hogs feeds us and our friends real good. Biscuits and sausage gravy are mmmmmm mmmmmm
 

theblakester

Got a black belt in keeping it real.
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Keeping the meat on ice for a few days and adding salt or some type of acidic juice (fruit juice, vinegar etc) will help tenderize and remove the gamey taste as others have mentioned.
It’s a very lean meat. If you cut the meat into small “chicken strip” sized pieces and season/marinate them, you can cook them pretty quickly on a higher heat without them getting all tough and dry whether on the grill, in the oven or in the fryer. For larger sections of meat like backstraps or hind quarters low and slow is the way to go, whether smoking or making into stew meat. I don’t have experience with hog sausage, but grounding it up into hamburger meat also works fine for making tacos, spaghetti etc.
 
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