Killing Hogs

Gut them as soon as they hit the ground in hot weather. Pack them with ice and start cooling them down as fast as you can. Depends on the size of the pig. Big ones go bad faster than small ones because they stay hot longer.

Pigs rot from the bone out. They are not like deer. You gotta get them cleaned and cooled fast.

Meh, they are just like any other mammal. They rot just the same. I like to get any meat out of any large game as soon as possible though and if I can get it done within 30 min of kill I am happy. Hogs being round and well insulated with fat will overheat when running afer a shot so cooling the meat is important. They do however skin out MUCH easier when warm.

Let me first say that 90% of my hogs are head shot. If you gut shoot a hog, or even shoot him with a large caliber in the vitals, you better get the meat out quickly or gut him quickly especially in the heat.


Personally, I dont like to gut hogs as it is just a messy ordeal and there are too many out there to mess with it. I like to "field filet" them and then sometimes I will take one or both hams also.

Wear vinyl or nitril gloves since pigs can carry diseases that transmit to humans.

Start by simply setting them up so they are laying on their bellies and make a long cut right along the top of the spine. You need a sharp sturdy knife. I really like the outdoor edge swing blade. Grab one side of the cut and peel it back as you use your blade to divide the skin from the fat/fascia/meat. leave as much fat as possible but remove anything that looks like hair follicles. As it starts to peel back, make two cuts perpendicular to the previous skin cut to allow the skin to pull down farther. Looking down on the pig it should look like a capital "I". Once you get to the ribs stop. no cut thought the backstrap at the neck and peel it up and out from the spine while using your blade vertically along the spinous process to cut it free. It should peel off of the underlying rib head with a little force. When you get down to the pelvis just cut the backstrap free.

If you want a ham or two, roll the pig on one side being sure to cover any skinned meat with the skin to keep dirt off. Then just skin down the outside of the topside back leg peeling the skin outward until the entire leg down to the knee is visible. Then follow the pelvic bone with your blade to free the muscle from there and locate the acetabulum or cup of the hip joint. When you find it cut through the cartilage. Don't use the edge of your blade as a pry bar as the bone is strong enough to break a blade. Once the hip joint is disconnected, lift the leg up and skin the underside of the leg off. Once free, you should have a leg skinned from the knee up but still attached to the body from the knee down by skin. Lay the skinned ham on the skinned backstrap area. Bend the knee back and forth until you find the joint and cut through the cartilage not the bone. Then cut though the other side of the cartilage and around the joint. With one swift movement hyperextend the knee and it will pop free. The result should be a skinless ham with no bone fragments. Roll the pig to the other side and repeat. This process including both hams takes about 10-20 min depending on the size of the hog.


I carry a few trash bags and a few 1 gallon zip locks in my truck for putting the straps and hams in. Bring the home and rinse them off well with cool water, then singe them with a blow torch to get any stray hairs you may have left behind then rinse again. You can now age them in a cooler for 1-5 days depending on cooler temp. I prefer to age pork dry instead of wet but that is up to the individual. Make sure to cook to an internal temp of 165 degrees.


If you want to keep the whole hog, skin the legs from the knee down prior to hanging using your blade and gravity to push the skin toward the body. Also make a long incision down the back as above prior to hanging. Some people like to slit the throat and let them bleed too but that is up to you. After hanging, skin out the back and hams but cut around the skin of the anus. Skin down the belly keeping the belly intact. Skin all the way down to the neck and leave the skin hanging. You can remove the front legs from knee down at this time as described above. Now go back up to the abdomen and make a shallow incision in the abdomen being careful not to cut the intestines or bladder. Once inside the abdominal cavity, cut outward and down with your knife opening the cavity without entering the bowels. When you get to the ribs/sternum take your blade and cut down through the cartilage on the sides of the sternum. Go back up to the rectum and cut around the skin and tail being careful to not enter the intestines. Either pull the rectum and rectal skin sitll attached to the rest of the bowels through the pelvisor cut through the front of the pelvis and pull it forward. Pull down on the intestines and they should peel off of the back of the abdominal wall. Now will all of the bowels, and rectum hanging down on the ribs, pull them forward and cut around the diaphragm. Once the diaphragm is lose, the entire bowels should fall out still intact and with no intestinal contamination of your meat. Now spread the ribs at the previous sternal incision and pull down on the lungs, heart, esophagus, ect. Now you should have a clead pig with a bunch of junk hanging from its neck. Cut across throat of the neck until you hit the spine then go to the back of the neck and cut though the meat. Find a vertebral joint and cut between the vertebral (spine) bones to free the head and all of the discards. If you have it handy rinse the pig at this point, then torch and re rinse. If not, lower the pig into a lawn size trashbag and remove the gambrel. Detach the lower legs in the same fashion as above and get it all on ice. Done correctly cleaning on this way takes about 30 min depending on size of hog.


I hope that wasn't too long.

Good luck .

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Wear vinyl or nitril gloves since pigs can carry diseases that transmit to humans.

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Balantidium coli FTW

Sorry I'm working on parasitology right now

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Start by simply setting them up so they are laying on their bellies and make a long cut right along the top of the spine. You need a sharp sturdy knife. I really like the outdoor edge swing blade. Grab one side of the cut and peel it back as you use your blade to divide the skin from the fat/fascia/meat. leave as much fat as possible but remove anything that looks like hair follicles. As it starts to peel back, make two cuts perpendicular to the previous skin cut to allow the skin to pull down farther. Looking down on the pig it should look like a capital "I". Once you get to the ribs stop. no cut thought the backstrap at the neck and peel it up and out from the spine while using your blade vertically along the spinous process to cut it free. It should peel off of the underlying rib head with a little force. When you get down to the pelvis just cut the backstrap free.

If you want a ham or two, roll the pig on one side being sure to cover any skinned meat with the skin to keep dirt off. Then just skin down the outside of the topside back leg peeling the skin outward until the entire leg down to the knee is visible. Then follow the pelvic bone with your blade to free the muscle from there and locate the acetabulum or cup of the hip joint. When you find it cut through the cartilage. Don't use the edge of your blade as a pry bar as the bone is strong enough to break a blade. Once the hip joint is disconnected, lift the leg up and skin the underside of the leg off. Once free, you should have a leg skinned from the knee up but still attached to the body from the knee down by skin. Lay the skinned ham on the skinned backstrap area. Bend the knee back and forth until you find the joint and cut through the cartilage not the bone. Then cut though the other side of the cartilage and around the joint. With one swift movement hyperextend the knee and it will pop free. The result should be a skinless ham with no bone fragments. Roll the pig to the other side and repeat. This process including both hams takes about 10-20 min depending on the size of the hog.


I carry a few trash bags and a few 1 gallon zip locks in my truck for putting the straps and hams in. Bring the home and rinse them off well with cool water, then singe them with a blow torch to get any stray hairs you may have left behind then rinse again. You can now age them in a cooler for 1-5 days depending on cooler temp. I prefer to age pork dry instead of wet but that is up to the individual. Make sure to cook to an internal temp of 165 degrees.


If you want to keep the whole hog, skin the legs from the knee down prior to hanging using your blade and gravity to push the skin toward the body. Also make a long incision down the back as above prior to hanging. Some people like to slit the throat and let them bleed too but that is up to you. After hanging, skin out the back and hams but cut around the skin of the anus. Skin down the belly keeping the belly intact. Skin all the way down to the neck and leave the skin hanging. You can remove the front legs from knee down at this time as described above. Now go back up to the abdomen and make a shallow incision in the abdomen being careful not to cut the intestines or bladder. Once inside the abdominal cavity, cut outward and down with your knife opening the cavity without entering the bowels. When you get to the ribs/sternum take your blade and cut down through the cartilage on the sides of the sternum. Go back up to the rectum and cut around the skin and tail being careful to not enter the intestines. Either pull the rectum and rectal skin sitll attached to the rest of the bowels through the pelvisor cut through the front of the pelvis and pull it forward. Pull down on the intestines and they should peel off of the back of the abdominal wall. Now will all of the bowels, and rectum hanging down on the ribs, pull them forward and cut around the diaphragm. Once the diaphragm is lose, the entire bowels should fall out still intact and with no intestinal contamination of your meat. Now spread the ribs at the previous sternal incision and pull down on the lungs, heart, esophagus, ect. Now you should have a clead pig with a bunch of junk hanging from its neck. Cut across throat of the neck until you hit the spine then go to the back of the neck and cut though the meat. Find a vertebral joint and cut between the vertebral (spine) bones to free the head and all of the discards. If you have it handy rinse the pig at this point, then torch and re rinse. If not, lower the pig into a lawn size trashbag and remove the gambrel. Detach the lower legs in the same fashion as above and get it all on ice. Done correctly cleaning on this way takes about 30 min depending on size of hog.


I hope that wasn't too long.

Good luck .

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Great summation. I'm curious if anyone uses something other than a blowtorch to get the stray hair off. I keep a machete in the jeep as it makes the 'hacking' a lot easier than trying to work a knife through the cartilage and between vertebrae. Most of the hogs we see are smaller than y'alls though. Good stuff, Bleeding purple.

The first (and last) time I dressed a hog I did it like a deer. I have heard of people doing it with a truck and seem to have decent success with it.

That's interesting BP. The reason I thought that about the hogs deteriorating differently was because that was what a butcher told me.

I had found a deer that had been gut shot the afternoon before. Cleaned it and took it to him and asked if it was salvageable. He smelled the marrow, looked it over, and said yes. As long as the marrow smelled right, the meat was ok. But then he said you couldn't do this with a hog because by that time the marrow would stink, even if the meat didn't and that meant it was bad because they decayed differently from deer and went bad from the inside out.

I just took him at his word. Never actually looked it up or anything. I suspect you know more about that as a Dr than he would though. I mean it's all animal tissue. Can't be that different.

BP, you come hard with some serious write ups. to your cornucopia of facts and life lessons. Thanks

I shot a small boar last year on an evening hunt, field dressed it, and left it there b/c it was going down into the 30s that night. I figured it would keep given the temps. So i hunted the next morning and went to get it, and it was green(ie. smelled rotten), and had been partially eaten. The gutpile was totally gone. So maybe they do spoil faster than deer.

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The gutpile was totally gone

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nasty how they go for the shite tube before the meat huh?


If I clean a whole hog I rinse it down which drops the temp quickly and then put it on ice immediately. Of course I do the same for deer. I wouldn't leave a deer the way you left your hog. ETA: i leave hogs for coyotes all the time though


Simply put meat spoilage is a reault of bacterial exposure, and growth and autolysis of cells. The autolysis occurs at the same speed across species in general. The same bacteria spoil deer as hogs. As long as the bacteria can reproduce, which requires temps above 41 degrees then the meat will spoil. The higher the temp of the meat, and the longer it is at that temp the faster the bacteria spread and destroy the meat.