field dressing a hog?

[Terry1]

How do you field dress a hog? Is it any different than a deer? Thanks.

[STUMPJMPR]

Just like a deer cut him and pull his guts out.... Pretty simple....

[GeneRector]

  Howdy! After field dressing, get it on ice fast or into a walk in cooler. The meat tends to go bad fast, especially with high daytime temps. Plan ahead and know what locker plant you will be using if you do not butcher and pack your own meat. Where I live in Texas, the closest locker plant is 23 miles away, but they are only open Monday thru Thursday until deer season. The next closest is 45 miles away, but they are open Monday thru Saturday each week. Thus, if you get a hog around here on a Sunday, better plan to have plenty of ice available to keep the meat cooled down until Monday morning. During deer season, there is a locker plant that has an after hours cooler available for you to tag your hog and place inside the locker until they open up. Be sure and talk to the meat processor ahead of time and know their hours of operation. Be sure they take wild hogs. I called one locker plant-meat processor that said they did not take hogs at all anytime.  So have a great hunt!   Wild hog is great meat! 

[Graybeard]

One MAJOR difference. Hogs are known carriers of all sorts of bad diseases so it's VERY IMPORTANT to wear rubber gloves or some type of protection while doing the job with hogs. Of course I do it even with deer but not all do. I keep a box of the type gloves doctors use during exams on hand and also have some long all the way to my shoulders plastic gloves that fit over those. That's mostly to limit the amount of blood that gets onto my clothes and upper arms and the gloves are just in case any bad stuff is there that might get into any cracks or cuts on my hands.

[Casull]

Very good advice GB.

[elmer]

Graybeard makes a good point. I keep a few pairs on nitrile gloves with my gear. I switched to the nitriles because we use them at work due to better puncture resistance.

[Old English]

I use gloves coz I am pussy! I hate field dressing, butchering is fine.

[alsaqr]

Howdy! After field dressing, get it on ice fast or into a walk in cooler. The meat tends to go bad fast, especially with high daytime temps.

+1

I hunt hogs 12 months of the year.  When the temperature is 90 degrees a person has about 3 hours to get the animal cooled:  At 80 degrees about 4 hours.  Every butcher shop in this area has had guys bring in spoiled hogs for  processing. 

[okieshooter]

just a little tip on skinning. You can get a hooked razor blade for cutting shingles and use to slice hide tail to head about every inch or so around the hog and the strips then pull right off. It also will not cut very deep making it easier to leave fat on the meat for better flavor.

[jmayton]

In complete agreement with GB, wear gloves.  Sometimes all i take is the backstrap and i still wear gloves for that. 

As for any particular technique, find what works best for you...there isn't really a wrong way to do it, as long as you are not cutting up organs and meat.

[elmer]

One thing I recently added to my gear is the Gerber E-Z Zip (# 5924). It saves on dulling my knife and speeds up opening up the pig without knicking things that is best left alone. I also used it to cut the skin down the legs which sped up the skinning. I never liked gut hooks which always seemed to catch on things at the wrong time and were never sharp enough.

Sometime I gut them on the ground and sometimes I wait till I'm back at the skinning shed. Depends upon the light and the temperature. What really slows me down is when I get to the back half. I go slow and careful cutting away the connecting tissue in that area. Everything back there is nasty if it gets cut and will contaminate the meat.

[Land_Owner]

You could sew a grass skirt or use pine sap to stick on pine bark, which works significantly better than creek mud or clay...

...or you could go here:  http://www.texasboars.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=8169 for a pictorial reference.

[oldyardog]

Thank You Land Owner, As a new hog hunter I had not seen this before. It will come in handy I hope.


Oldyardog