Pig hunting Aussie Style.

[Tank-Girl]

Here in Australia dog and knife hunting is extremely popular.
The dogs are bred to not only track but to catch/ hold the feral pig by the ears until the owner can run in, snag a back leg and stick the pig in the heart.
The dogs are fitted with plates. This is a velar vest that is buckled onto the dog to protect it from the tusks.
The fitted wide collars also have GPS positioning trackers built into them to let the owner know where the dogs are.
There nothing more primal than humans going out with a dog and a knife and bringing home meat.
Landshark was bred to hunt pigs in this manner.
Here are some pics of her Mum and Dad.
As you can see, Landsharks 'people' are huge and you can also get an idea why even a heavy duty crate won't hold her if she wants out.


Here is a very good example of a lass from my neck of the woods pig hunting in this manner.
Aussie Lasses from around here are a feisty lot.

 

[Amish Heart]

Impressive dogs! Are wild hogs eaten?

 

[Tank-Girl]

Impressive dogs! Are wild hogs eaten?

You have to be extremely careful when choosing which pig to keep.
Around here they can carry the following pathogens so knowing what to look for is important.-
leptospirosis, toxoplasmosis, brucellosis, tularemia, trichinellosis, swine influenza, salmonella, hepatitis and pathogenic E. coli.
It's also very important for both you and the dogs to to get the right shots and handle the carcass correctly so you don't catch anything.
Cooking the meat extremely well is also important..I believe that you people in the States have to be careful when you cook bear meat as well for the same reasons.

 

[Amish Heart]

It's never a good idea to butcher pig in the heat of the summer unless you have a cold room. Where I live it's usually done around Christmastime. Our neighbor and their family butcher a number of them then and always bring us yummy sausage, but these are farm raised pigs.

 

[Tank-Girl]

It's never a good idea to butcher pig in the heat of the summer unless you have a cold room. Where I live it's usually done around Christmastime. Our neighbor and their family butcher a number of them then and always bring us yummy sausage, but these are farm raised pigs.

These feral pigs are just rank.
They'll eat rotten week old carcasses, manure, they'll rip up septic tanks, road kill, the billabong that lass caught the boar on should have been filled with lillies, water plants and greenery but it had been destroyed by feral pigs.
Not a frog, bird or tadpole left and the water quality was utterly destroyed by their rooting.

 

[Tank-Girl]

To give you some sort of sense of scale of just how big Landshark's dad is..this lass is a smallish 9 year old.

 

[Amish Heart]

Wow! That's pretty big!

 

[Spikedriver]

These feral pigs are just rank.
They'll eat rotten week old carcasses, manure, they'll rip up septic tanks, road kill, the billabong that lass caught the boar on should have been filled with lillies, water plants and greenery but it had been destroyed by feral pigs.
Not a frog, bird or tadpole left and the water quality was utterly destroyed by their rooting.

I'm lucky in that feral hogs don't survive winter very well in my area. But just two hours south there have been small herds establish themselves. However the hard winters did them in eventually.

American feral hogs can carry disease but for the most part it is safe when properly cooked, according to the guys I know that go to Oklahoma every year to hunt them.

 

[Peanut]

Hog hunting is big business through much of the deep south, from TX to GA. Young folks with good dogs contract out to any farmer with a hog problem.

It's also popular as a sport. Deer hunting was king here but in some areas there are more hogs than deer.

And they are eaten here.

 

[Tank-Girl]

Wow! That's pretty big!

Both bitch and dog have Red Boy red nose pit bloodlines.
Both of them and Landshark have off the hook prey drive and guard instincts.

 

[Bluetick21]

Great looking dogs!

 

[Morgan101]

Sounds like the pigs here are not nearly as bad as what they have in Australia at least from a consumption standpoint. I know they can be equally as destructive and are a huge problem in a lot of areas.

Trichinosis is the biggest culprit here, and yes it can affect bears as well. You definitely don't want to eat that meat rare. Well done or beyond is safest. I have eaten Javelina as well, which is more native to the desert Southwest. They look like pigs, and act like pigs, but technically are a different family. Also known as a Peccary.

 

[Bacpacker]

We have wild boar here as well, mostly in the mountains. Brush is heavy so most folks hunt with dogs and pistol or something like a 30-30. It is good eating usually

Great looking dogs TG. Really nice

 

[txcatlady]

wild porkers tear up everything. They got in my yard a few weeks ago. They are now heavily hunted but not even a dent in population.we prefer 50 or so pounds for eating. Cut hams off and wrap in foil, bake until tender. No gamey taste. The big one have to hung in a cooler for a week to make them edible. No body down here can do that. We can’t hang a deer over night outside here anymore, not cold enough. I only handle with gloves to avoid exposure to brucellosis. I love to hunt hogs. I will not track a wounded one. My son in law used to hunt like the Aussie. I am old, slow and no dogs. Nope, shoot em!

 

[hashbrown]

About 20 years ago we were over run with wild pigs here. We killed them with bows, pistols, rifles and knives. We caught them with dogs mostly. If you can ever get a hold of a pigs back legs he’s yours! Throw him over on his side put your knee on him and plunge the knife in.

Me my brother my mom and my grandpa we killed a truck load of pigs that morning before 9am. That was back when I was still pretending that I wasn’t going bald.

 

[Bacpacker]

That was a good days hunt.

 

[hashbrown]

That was a good days hunt.

It was until we started butchering them!

 

[hashbrown]

This was the last time I went on a hog hunt and my wife’s very first hunt. She got a shoat that morning, it was a horrific gut shot! If I had shot it I probably would have let the coyotes eat it but being her first kill I had to clean it. She was 5 months pregnant with our boy on this hunt.