Hog butchering questions

I've only done a couple so I'm certainly not an expert but they are not much different than doing a deer. The larger one of the two that I did got kind of obnoxious getting the hide away from the shoulder/chest area-that feral one had built up a pretty good pad of gristle type armor that had me reaching in almost to arms length to keep cutting the hide away.

First thing to do is to get it field dressed and cooled just as soon as possible since pork will spoil much faster than deer. We were lucky enough to have overnight temps in the 40's but I still boned everything out first thing the next AM and got it in a cooler on ice.

Oh yeah, the hide is tough hair is tough and will dull a knife in a heartbeat. Keep a stone handy and don't be afraid to keep honing the edge because it make a lot of difference the time spent field dressing.

I'm sure that others will have some input too....Dabutcher may have some better instructions.

Another thing we all did before hunting them was to closely study the anatomy of a pig. There are several sites in the hunting world that will show the vitals of a hog. They are much lower and further forward than you would think. The two that we took were both shot right behind ear with excellent results (it seems like the term was "dirt nap").

Good luck! Where are you planning on going? Some of the fenced operations don't have the best reputation for running a very "fair chase" hunt. We were lucky enough to find some feral hogs in SC, unfortunately that area has about dried up so we are looking again. I just have a problem with paying someone to hunt behind their fence when there so many feral hogs that really need to be eliminated.

Thanks for the info. Was not sure if the butchering was similar to deer. I am going to go in Illinois to get rid of some feral hogs that have come into the hunting ground. A few have been taken already weighting 120-130 lbs.