Wild Hog Meat

[Magilla26]

Most of the pigs I have killed have been from the central coast area and had been raiding the Barley fields. As long as I gut, skin, and get them cooled down in a decent amount of time they have all tasted fine. The big boars are a little chewy and I grind them into sausage.

[WinMagMike]

Ironically enough Sunday we were hanging with parents of a friend of my little girl. First time really meeting these folks and turns out he hunts pigs. He was telling me he is a big proponent of butchering yourself. Reason being he took his meat to a wild game processor and was pretty sure when he got it back it was not the same meat he took in.

[kotetu]

I found this pretty informative.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4w9IHZt3OGY

[Canucky]

Ironically enough Sunday we were hanging with parents of a friend of my little girl. First time really meeting these folks and turns out he hunts pigs. He was telling me he is a big proponent of butchering yourself. Reason being he took his meat to a wild game processor and was pretty sure when he got it back it was not the same meat he took in.

This isn't the first time I have heard that comment.

[lewdogg21]

This isn't the first time I have heard that comment.

Yes this happens. Even with a good butcher it can happen with ground meat as they do it in big batches and then divvy it up by weight at the end.

If you shoot a lot of animals it makes sense to do it yourself from a cost standpoint and you can do it how you like it. My dad swears he won't use a butcher again after what he paid for his last elk.

You aren't "less of a man" if you don't butcher your own. Just different strokes for different folks.

[leadstorm]

I prefer to bone out (aka filet) all my wild game. This takes time.

A meat processor is on the clock and trying to make money, and will quite often use a saw - it's fairly well known that marrow and bone chips of wild game foul meat flavor.

High-volume processors will also mix customers' meat. Some will even openly admit it - everybody goes to the Big Grinder in the Back and you get an amount of meat out that corresponds to the size of the game you brought in. Who knows about the quality and treatment of all the other customers' meat prior to even getting to the processor?

[MJB]

The butcher I've used down here no way combines meat for the grinder. He does one animal at a time.....I guess I'm lucky