How much meat do I get from a feral hog? Not as much as I might hope.
Here’s a picture of the sow I shot Sunday night. Using the heart girth estimate method, her 36 inch girth translates to 160 pounds.
As mentioned before, I hang the porker by its back legs and skin it. Then I can take the shoulders, the backstraps, and the hams. This pig had some fat on her under the hide, nice.
Then, there is the time factor. Monday, as I was skinning the pig the day was getting warmer. So, I needed to move the project along. Therefore, I couldn’t spend a lot of time trimming every scrap meat.
Off came the shoulders and into a trash bag and into the fridge. Off came the backstraps and hams using the same method.
The carcass traveled by tractor to a spot east of the house where the buzzards would be very happy.
From the fridge, the shoulders and hams were each deboned and placed in zip-lock bags in the fridge. Backstraps are very easy-no bones about it.
This is a change in methodology for me. A year ago, I would have placed the six big pieces on ice. An experienced hunter, butcher, chef recommended against the on-ice method because the meat absorbs too much water. This made sense to me.
When I got home, the zip-lock bags went into the fridge for further processing. It all became bulk sausage.
I have done my own sausage making in the past using powder that I bought through (you guessed it) www.amazon.com.
So, the pieces get washed and cut into smaller bits, weighed for proper seasoning, seasoned with the powder, ground, and packed into bags made for this purpose. I even have the bag taping machine, very handy.
Bottom line: from the 160 pound sow, we got 20 pounds of sausage.
Where is the weight? Hide, guts, bones. No doubt, commercial operations are expert at getting every scrap of meat from the animals they butcher.
Could I get more? Yes, but it would require much more trimming of the carcass. Given the time constraints of warm weather, etc., this would be difficult. Is it worth the extra effort? Probably, if I had help on scene to offset the time constraints.
In this particular case, since the bullet entered the shoulder breaking the right front leg, there was additional meat loss. Again, neck shots are preferred.
In the grander scheme, even in my circumstances where I hunt on my own property and process the meat myself, this is not cheap protein.
But, it’s good protein. Lean meat, very tasty, harvested cleanly, an effort at self-reliance, processed at home in the context of the family. Worth it? Absolutely.
Harvesting feral hogs is not, strictly speaking, a cost-effective means to obtain protein. But, there is more to life than efficiency. Make hog hunting a part of your complete life where all things are kept in balance.
Porcus Hogrelius
Make Yourself a Better Hog Hunter
