Eviscerating wild boar

[supergrouper]

I have lived in France for 17 years before returning to the UK 3 years ago. I belonged to the local Chasse Communal for 4 years, hunting the numerous local boar. After an early rendezvous we were ‘on our pegs’ by 9 o’clock. Shooting terminated by 1 o’clock when carcasses would be collected and taken back to base. They were then eviscerated and butchered prior to drawing lots at the end of the day to decide on allocation to members of the group. The butchering was rather primitive I’m afraid and standards of hygiene left a little to be desired, the whole process having an element of machismo and show. I chose not to get involved. My main concern was the length of time that animals killed early in the day lay uneviscerated.
I have just returned from a 2 day boar shoot in northern France. On both days the bag was in the region of 30 boar. Having started our shooting day at approximately 10 am, no animals had been eviscerated by 4pm. I simply cannot understand how animals can be left so long without serious levels of contamination. Clearly the practice is widespread. I do understand the logistical problems on large shoots with long drives of disrupting proceedings to eviscerated an animal.
I would be interested to read other members thoughts.

 

[Woodenbeam]

They’re all still alive I’m assuming - the hunters that is.
I’d steer clear of the belly but everything back & front would be fine I’m thinking.
In a bit of heat opening up prior to chopping up would probably cause more issues than not unless immediately removed into cool storage.

 

[Camdig]

I think it's to do with pigs being Monogastric and not Ruminant like deer.

 

[cjm1066]

Deer are rummiants so the rumen continues working after death as its filled with active bacteria, hence a quick grallock.

Pigs only have a single stomach which stops working as the animal dies.

 

[Dunwaters]

As above, pigs don’t bloat so theres no problem leaving them intact for a few hours.

 

[supergrouper]

Good replies. Thank you. The differences in the digestive systems had never occurred to me.

 

[VSS]

Not such an issue with pigs, not being ruminants.
Having said that, it's not uncommon for deer to lie a long time before gralloch here in the UK. Take the case of a group cull, for example, where participants have to remain in their seats for safety reasons until the end of the agreed period. Let's say three hours in the seat. So a deer shot at the very beginning will have laid for three hours by the time the session ends. And then it might take another couple of hours to locate all the shot deer, with obvious priority being given to anything that ran. So that takes it up to 5 hours. Then it's going to take quite a while to process everything, say another couple of hours to get through gralloching everything and get them to the larder, so you might conceivably be looking at a 7 hour delay in total.
Not "best practice" perhaps, but certainly common practice.

 

[finnbear270]

Deer can also be shot on drives, most of the ones I have been on you can shoot as soon as you attain your peg & clear your shooting area, so might make 4 / 5 hours.

 

[Bavarianbrit]

My pal who is a vet here says nobody ever died from eating venison.

 

[finnbear270]

My pal who is a vet here says nobody ever died from eating venison.

Almost died eating Frikadellen at a forest BarB. never go near them now.

 

[sauer]

My pal who is a vet here says nobody ever died from eating venison.

Tell that to the person who ended up in intensive care after eating highland game meatballs ..
Granted its because they undercooked a minced product but the risk is real and still there

Paul

 

[Olaf]

At the driven hunts I attend in Germany we always stop at lunchtime and deal with the carcasses before the afternoon drives. Everything goes into the chiller and so does everything shot in the afternoon. If we have large numbers of deer and boar that we have shot then we have a couple of local butchers that come over with their chiller vans. they buy surplus carcasses off us and take them away to process themselves and sell in their shops once the meat and blood sample results taken from the Wild boar have been given the all clear from the local vets for Trichinosis and ASP.
Obviously all wid boar get meat and blood samples taken and get dropped off at the vets on the same day, regardless of whether the butchers are taking them or not. All our local vets here have drop boxes in fridges at the surgery where you can pop your labelled samples in for them to test. At the vets I use you can drop off your samples 24 hrs a day as he has a fridge in an out building especially for hunters samples. If the vet hasn’t contacted you within 48 hrs then you know the meat can go into the food chain. I’ve only ever heard of one wild boar carcass that had Trichinosis in the Landkreis where i hunt in Germany and that was shot by a friend of mine. Nonetheless, I’d never want to eat any wild boar meat that hadn’t been tested by the vets, regardless of how well the meat was cooked , as eating round worm infected meat is pretty disgusting in my opinion.

Kindest regards, Olaf