Feral Hog Hunting
With deer season over, its now time to get after feral hogs.
Unfortunately, feral hogs have been decimating crops and farm land in North America for over 500 years.
The herd of hogs in the picture above is at least 20 hogs, probably closer to 30 if the ones hidden in the tree line could be seen.
A single sow can have up to 3 litters per year, weaning around 4 piglets per litter in our climate.
While feral hogs can grow to a half a ton, most will only get to 250-300 pounds.
Not only do they destroy farmland and crops, the damage to a vehicle when you hit them at 60 MPH is devestating to say the least.
While trapping hogs in a live catch trap is preferred, they are quite intelligent and quickly adapt to trapping, avoiding capture quite easily.
When rifle hunting hogs, we tend to target mature sows (over 150 pounds) to control population and target 70-100 pound hogs for food purposes.
The sow pictured above is about 270 pounds, with inch and a half tusks. Not the type of creature a person would wish to engage at a close range.
As hogs are omnivores, they can and commonly do eat other animals and strip the forests and fields of foods normally eaten by herbavores and birds.
While not very enjoyable, feral hog hunting is necessary to protect the land.
But are they good eating?
The smaller ones (under 100 pounds) are quite good when hickory smoked whole.
After that, we debone any remaining meat and freeze or can it. That meat is awesome when recooked with pinto beans and onions, served with sweet cornbread.
So at least you have a decent food source to work with. I'd imagine you need to thoroughly cook it to get rid of parasites, though...
Definately!
While parasites are a concern, we generally wait until its quite cold to hunt them.
The cold weather normally will kill the old, weak, sick or diseased hogs.
When smoking them, we'll keep them in the smoker 6-8 hours. This brings the core temperature well above that required to eliminate parasites.
We don't seem to have parasite problems in our part of Oklahoma, but better safe than sorry!
A wise sentiment.
Do you save the hide?
I have tanned hog hide before, but I generally don't now days. Its a lot of work.