Building a better hog trap
 

If you get bored, jump to 4:50 for the money shot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsFXhGoDnW0

I remember that from a few years ago. It is efficient but smashed that one piglet flat.

I'm wondering if, similar to tbe gourmet appeal of lamb and veal, piglets are an attractive menu item. They're not getting out of this alive either way I don't think.

The gamey flavor is hard to remove. Soaked in buttermilk for a few hours helps. I had a friend that caught piglets for slaughter and I never liked the taste.

Piglets = Bacon Bits

Beer soak for a day or two, changing out the beer every 12 or so hours, followed by buttermilk. The gamey taste is still there, but not near as bad. That gamey flavor is why wild turkeys will never be on my table. What we all know as turkey is the white, domestic version. That one in the woods tastes like crap.

When it comes to deer, a doe is much better tasting than a buck, any day.

'I'm old enough to remember (truly) free-range livestock, in which towns had cattleguards on entry roadways and perimeter fencing. Outside of that, livestock roamed. Every fall herders would round up cattle, goats and swine and divide them by ownership based on brands (cattle and goats) and ear notching patterns on swine -- earmarks. The various owners would decide which animals to butcher, sell, or return to free-ranging. For a period of time, Louisiana had the largest cattle drives in the Western Hemisphere. The community would have a boutcherie and everybody got a season's worth of protein in a few days.

With the demise of free range grazing there were feral and abandoned animals without brands or earmarks. Those critters are 'fair game'. The descendants of those critters still roaming the woods to this day. There is no hunting season, there is no bag limit. You're supposed to have a valid hunting license, a sort of perfunctory nod to reality but winked at.

In my neck of the woods, feral swine are a menace to nature, ag crops and herds. They carry diseases to which other species, and man, are peculiarly susceptible. They destroy native habitat.

I know a few people who capture feral swine, corn feed them, and butcher them. Thus treated, their meat is a bit better texture and flavor than commercial pork. In the main, most people don't fool with fattening. Most people kill them and leave them for vultures and coyotes.

Feral swine are very effectively addressed by the various AR-15 variants. I have an in-law that killed 40 IN ONE NIGHT! The swine were in his soy beans. Don't mess with a farmer's soy beans.

I'm surprised, I can't find it in search, but I recall someone here, maybe Bot, talking about people caging wild boar taken alive and feeding them a diet that was designed to improve flavor. These penned hogs would be ideal for some sort of feed lot treatment.

*EDIT* Hah! One minute before my post is the feedlot info.

I recall reading the memoirs of a mountain man years ago, he was a modern variant. Sylvan Hart, lived on the Snake River in remote Idaho from the 30s til his death in 1980. He said that if you were going to kill a bear for meat to kill him right after blueberry season. The fruit diet was cleansing. Who knows, a couple of weeks of the right feed might sweeten up a hog's meat.

I disagree with you concerning turkey. Wild turkey is an excellent table bird, properly prepared and cooked. And like ducks or doves, improper preparation and cooking results in unpalatable meat. Unless you're really, really hungry. In that case, any protein is good. Just as the Donners, party of 12, ....

In my experience, feral swine can be highly palatable. Boars being the exception. Any swine can be fed good quality feed and improve, except a boar -- hormones.

But trapping the animals is not trivial. Transporting once trapped is very problematic. People do it profitably. Not me.

We are getting feral pigs here in IN. Some say the meat is very good. As long as they are younger ones. Denmark or Holland is building a wall on their German border. Keep out the wilde Deutsche Swine.