Originally Posted By: catmandoo
I can't imagine cleaning/butchering a hog in that heat. Does that cause any problems? Besides the heat, what about flies and hornets?

When I help friends butcher pigs, we wait for a day when it is around freezing. We scald and scrape them instead of skinning them.


Ken,
I have had as many as (13) live feral hogs (penned) in a cattle trailer in the month of August. We would have to segregate one at a time to a section of the cattle trailer, shoot'em between the eye and the ear with a .38 pistol. Quickly as possible, cut the stones out of the li'l boars, quickly hang them, and start the skinning and slaughtering process. A water source is critical in that kind of heat. Once you have the head removed and all the entrails removed, rinsed off with a water hose, we have ice chests full of ice waiting and quickly go to the box with them and cover with ice. I've killed and slaughtered as many as 5) consecutively in a morning / mid-day timeline. The key is to shoot them and deal with them one at a time. It does make the other hogs in cattle trailer a little skittish after you shoot the first one...and they get worse after each shot. We had a huge sow started dropping piglets during this process and she was stomping them to death there in the trailer for whatever reason. It was not a pleasant thing to watch...we never had a problem with flies or anything else, but the key was to get them on ice one at a time as quickly as possible. I would love to have scalded, scraped, and salvaged the skins, for cracklins, but that is something that you cannot afford to do in the summer months...
Charlie

...when in doubt...set the hook...