are wild hogs safe to eat?

I have been trapping wild hogs on my place in SE Ok and giving them away. Should i be processing them instead?

the only issue I've had is the ones that weigh over 100 pounds are smelly and you wouldn't want to cook them in the house. we keep em in a pen for a week or two, worm them and fatten em up just a little and they turn out better. you still want to cook them thouroughly.

Thanks for your response. I will try that. Roy

Havalina are edible. If prepared by an experienced cook. they are tasty (I have had them and their "Rocky Mountain Oysters" in AZ. I enjoyed it. I like most game animals though. Jim
Info

There no more dangerous than tame hogs. You don't want to eat any rare chicken or pork. If you can hold them a few days and feed them some corn, they are better. If they been eating acorns they are not very good. We use to turn our hogs in on the peanut patch after thrashing and let them grub out the peanuts left in the ground. They weren't fit to eat after that until we put them on corn for awhile.

Given a choice, butcher a wet sow under 150 lbs. I've never penned them up and fed them out but that is a great idea. Because it's wild cook it thoroughly. Been eating it for years.

If othere wild game is good eating why wouldnt a wild hog be fit to eat.

(quoted from post at 19:51:08 03/07/12) There no more dangerous than tame hogs. You don't want to eat any rare chicken or pork. If you can hold them a few days and feed them some corn, they are better. If they been eating acorns they are not very good. We use to turn our hogs in on the peanut patch after thrashing and let them grub out the peanuts left in the ground. They weren't fit to eat after that until we put them on corn for awhile.

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Rare chicken or pork? Do you mean raw? :?:

In Florida, you can get very sick from brucellosis (sp?) that"s contracted while cleaning them (butchering). Google it.

Buddy of mine shot two of em a few years ago while out buck hunting. He brought em to my place and we cooked them luau style, and had one helluva party. Nobody got sick from anything but the booze.

Ben

Good eating and as JBMac said just be cautious when butchering. Plastic gloves work fine to prevent any contamination if you have nick or whatever on your hand(s).

Considered domestic animals in FLA and can be harvested yr. round EXCEPT on the designated Wildlife Mgmt Areas (WMA). When found on WMA they are considered wildlife with specific regulations.

As a young man I worked at slaughter house and we would dip hogs in hot water and scrape hair. When I moved here to the South found a much faster and easier way to process them - SKIN 'EM just like a deer.

Every now and again folks will trap some and rls them around my place (way out in the piney woods). I shoot every one I see because I don't want them over running the place. So far no population here except in freezers.

On occasion we have caught some "piney woods rooters" and penned them up, corn fed to clean em out and fatten them for slaughter.

If you have a lot of them then I would process them and sell as sausage etc. if not considered wildlife. For cages we use hog panels and T-posts in circle format.
Hogs in FLA

A few years ago we took a young sow about 130 lbs in February. That was the finest pork I have ever eaten. I considered it a delicacy. I wish we could have a couple in the freezer every year. I have not seen any around lately. I can not stand the factory raised pork in the stores, I don't buy it.

Not sure what you mean when you say you are "giving them away" but under OK law it is a felony to release then to anyone/place that is not licensed by the state, to recieve them.

Go on you tube and type in "hog hunting with helicopter" It looks like fun.

Go on you tube and type in "hog hunting with helicopter" It looks like fun.

All hogs, tame and wild, are subject to an internal parasite, thrichinois(sp).All prok needs to be cooke well done.

Confinement raised hogs surely are medicated but it's best to be safe.

Bears also hay have the same problem so cook your bear meat well also.

KEH

People around here eat them.But I have seen buzzards that wouldn't touch them. So I don't know.

I do know they are shot on site around here.We have contest to see who can kill the most. I don't think it makes a dent in the heards.

lemmond1, Yes wild hog are good to eat! Just use your usual rules about hogs in general!
Males over 60 lb get real borish in smell and taste when cooked.IMO over 60lbs just gut shoot and leave for the buzzards! Females about 100 they are still edible.
Most of us down here are in all out attack mode on hogs! Trap what you can and sell-em, gut shoot the rest and leave for the buzzards. Poison the rest, If you know what you are doing! JMO!
Later,
John A.

Cook untill internal tempature reaches at least 160 deg.

We attended a farm/ranch seminar in Jan. For the second year, the primary topic was wild pigs.

Kill all you can. They are a terrible pest. In Tx alone, they cause over $56 million in damage to crops, pastures, etc. each year. That doesn"t include the damage to non-agricultural areas and stress on native wildlife especially white-tailed deer.

They are pretty fearless and have been moving in to towns - the hospital in Palestine, Tx. had their grounds torn up by wild hogs. Since they travel in groups called sounders, with several adults, not a lot of predators will try to take them either.

Estimated wild pig population in Tx is over 1.5 million. According to Dr. Higginbotham, wild pig population doubles every 5 yrs. They are "reported" in every state except four and even in Canada. According to Dr. Higginbotham, the four states that say they don"t have wild pigs are incorrect.

There aren"t any hunting or trapping restrictions in Tx, but its illegal to poison them. If you get caught poisoning anything, its very expensive. In the example given, the farmer got a year in jail and a $10,000 fine.

Good news - in 2015 there will be a bait licensed that will kill only hogs - sodium nitrite. It prevents the blood cells from absorbing oxygen. Hogs are hugely susceptible to it while it doesn"t bother other animals. As the oxygen level in the blood drops, the pig gets sleepy, lays down, and never wakes up.

Having said all this, they are excellent eating. I"ve eaten it.

As mentioned in some of the earlier posts, if hunting for the meat, take the smaller ones. Wear rubber gloves when dressing them and cook the meat well done. They can carry pseudorabies and brucellosis which can be transmitted to people and livestock.

Thats interesting. A guy around here raises organic pigs, gathers up all the acorns he can find, feeds the pigs, and sells them to top restaurants in chicago as premium pork. Guess rich people have different tastes..lol..

I think you got some pretty good advise as far as what to look out for. Wear your gloves and cook the meat properly.


As far as the boars, I've had 250lb and over that was good meat, but some not so. Just depends on the boar and what he's up to. If he's musky smelling, your not going to want to cook the meat. Or at least not indoors. lol.

Ribs on these things are tough, bacon...naw.

I've killed a few hundred of these things and most often now just jerk the back straps and hams off them. I don't even gut them, just leave them on their stomachs and take what we want to cook.

If you pull the back straps, leave as much fat on them as you can and bake them slow before smoking them. The fat on these things doesn't melt like those on farm raised pigs. The meat is good but can be tougher than what most are use to from their pork.

Slow cooking in it's own juices is the best way. Get a good rub and you should be happy. Just remember that they aren't the same critter as farm raised pigs.

Better have a heck of a pen if you are gonna put a 150 lb wild hog in it. We have lots of damage from trying to put 50 pounders in our pens!

Darn tootin', they taste good up to about 150 lbs.

If I am going hog hunting I want to go with those girls on TV,but I would have to watchout and not get hit by flying flesh!

A hog is a hog wild or tame/confinement fed. The so called wild hog has to find its own food. If you are raising hogs and one gets away and is not caught soon it is a wild hog.
When I was butchering hogs and was to butcher a bore I would shoot it and castrate it before sticking it to bleed it out. That was passed on to me by old farmers that always butchered their own hogs. Not sure how much of a difference it did make in the taste but I never eat any that I thought needed to be not eaten.

Must be. One million buzzards served, with nary a complaint!!!

the pen I have is a heck of a pen--doubled up hog panel with concrete footing holding the panels in, learned the hard way. funny thing about them is the longer you keep them penned the tamer they get. first day they hit the panel so hard they can and have broken their jaws, after a couple of weeks they just give you the stink eye. if you catch the babies and raise them they are just like regular pigs--my friend had a couple he raised to eat--big old softie had to sell them as they became pets- still call him the pig whisperer.

Be alot better than eating one for those poor things raised in a factory hog confinment setup