Yea or Nea ?

I would eat one or two of them as is. And the other ones I would pen up and fatten them up real nice and then eat em. A decent bit of people where I'm from do keep small ones and just feed em out until they get bigger and then slaughter them. But ive had traps full of a few mamas and about 15 baby piglets before and each and every one of them got a .22 LR. bullet to the head. So I would definently not turn them loose no matter how young or small they are. Kill em all.

Also both of my parents are veterinarians and I remember as a kid my mother had this one client who had taken on an injured wild hog when it was just a little piglet in the wild and nursed it back to health and just kept it on as a pet for the rest of its life. So they can be somewhat "redomesticated" I just don't really advocate that unless you are planning to eat the sucker at some time or another. But this lady raised that wild pig and it was just like a huge 400 lbs. dog wonderin around the yard and letting you pet it.
 
I do believe it is illegal in most states to release pigs.

While we don't have the problem some states have, PA has no "pig season", they are shoot on sight as per the game commission.
 
As bad a hog problem as Texas has, releasing them should be criminal.
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In a way it is. From the Texas TPWD website........

The Texas Animal Health Commission has enacted regulations requiring all feral hogs in Texas to be tested and certified to be disease free before being released into the wild for whatever purposes.
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That said, if the problem with feral hogs is really as bad as folks put it our there as, then there should not even be a questions as to whether or not to let them live. While one person enjoys hunting them and wants them around, their neighbor may have major damage done from the same drift. That seems to be the major issue in controlling their numbers.
 
They do enough damage that I wouldn't want to release them. Just feed them out for a bit, then butcher.

If I was going to release any it would be males after castration, they won't be making any little piggies, and if you harvest them later the meat won't be so boarish tasting.
 
stevelyn.....I love the Sweet Baby Ray's sauce with pork. My wife made up a hog leg a while back with it and root beer in a crock pot. I stripped it off the bone when done and made sandwiches with it and a little more sauce dribbled over it. Makes my mouth water just thinking about it.
 
If they parallel other edible animals, the young ones are generally better....think veal or lamb. I don't know if that holds true for pigs or wild animals in general.
 
I heard that some trappers catch the males and castrate them and feed them corn for a month before slaughtering. This practice is for the quality of the meat.

Jack
 
There are probably a few guys that might pen up feral hogs to fatten them up for butcher, but I doubt many. Castrating and feeding out a larger boar is a time consuming endeavor. You won't be getting meat from a mature boar that is nearly as good as a sow for quite some time after castrating.
The feral hogs work for a living for one thing, and do not have the fat infused into the meat as much as domestic hogs. You can find them with a large girdle of fat on them, and still have pretty lean meat to deal with. The boar taste and smell can stay with one for some months after castrating as well.
A small boar will butcher out just fine, but the bigger ones are just coyote food as far as I'm concerned.
 
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