Not much to report success-wise, I made a bad shot and the pig got away.. The story though is where we hunted!

When I was told we'd be hunting a 'dead pile' I thought maybe a few dead cattle. In actuality, there were probably 15-20 relatively fresh dead carcasses and I couldn't even COUNT how many old and mostly dissolved in a nearby trench! At first I thought the pigs were eating the cows. Not so much. At least not from what we could tell anyway. What they were eating though, is the stomach contents of the cows. Mixed with the smell of rotting flesh was the smell of fermented grass and stomach acid! I wonder if the pigs get drunk on that fermented grass!? If you've ever shot a coyote off a fresh kill you know how they're all bloody from snout to shoulder. Well these pigs are the same way. My buddy's wife nailed one and between the smell of the pig (boar) and the smell of the rot, it's no surprise most folks don't want to hunt there.

All I know is I have no desire to eat any of those pigs!

Update: I've been talking to my buddy and him and his wife have gone back to that spot several times since I was last there a week ago. The hogs are also eating the maggots from the carcasses from 'forensic' evidence, and eating the cows as well. Now go ahead and have that extra bacon..

yuck

although i guess maggots are protein right?

That's what we were thinking. I agree though. Yuck!

They will eat virtually anything that doesn't eat them, and some things that will. I've shot hogs who were eating other hogs...they are cannibals. They didn't kill the hog they were feeding on, we did. We just shot others feeding off the body later. One more reason to kill them.

I did a beaver job last month and started throwing them in a pile. I came back the next time and they were eating the dead beaver. I seen them eating the dead cattle and the big boars will eat small pigs. That's a lot of why the old sows are so grouchy.

My wife shot a big sow last year and I couldn't load it in the truck so I too the hams and the backstrap and left it lay. By day three she was completely gone, hell them hogs will eat their own kin.

LOL, pigs are omnivores. Yes, they eat a lot of gross stuff. This should come as no surprise. After all, they root through dirt that is full of urine, feces, rotted plants, rotted flesh, etc.

I take it that you aren't familiar with how and what with pre and non industrial farmers would slop hogs. In short, hogs provided an excellent means of converting non-human organic waste into food.

No, I'm familiar with all that stuff. However, when you hunt pigs mostly in an open setting where natural pig magnets exist, you don't think too much about what they eat because it might be occaisional carrion, corn the next day, etc. It's just when you shift to something like a dead pile to hunt them that it brings sharp focus into just what the normal diet of a pig can and does consist of.

In Mexico I'm told it's not always uncommon for pigs to provide disposal services for human waste. Heck, people may do that here for all I know. I do know they will eat anything that can be digested-I just wanted to highlight a hunting setting that I have never used before, nor necessarily prefer.

I don't know that pigs are used for disposal of human waste as much as unsanitary conditions and free ranging pigs result in the pigs involved in the consumption of human waste. There is a significant problem that results from such interaction and it has gone one in many areas of the world where such conditions exist (some parts of tropical Mexico, Korea, etc.). The problem is Cysticercosis (ie, tapeworm infection, aka brain worms).

It really isn't that big of a deal what pigs will eat. Goats will eat just about anything organic as well along with a variety of inorganice materials. Once they eat what they eat and it gets converted into body tissue, with proper cooking, you are good to go! That pretty much goes for any food animals you consume.

I think this thread is getting sh!ty!!!! Lol who really cares? Just shoot them!!!

LOL, deal!

Pigs are used for human waste disposal in Mexico. Alot of outhouses are sitting atop pig pens..

Cooked properly you have no concerns.

This is the reason I prefer trapped hogs. I feed em corn for 2-4 weeks and kill them when I have time.

I had a buddy in high school who told me years later that they would shoot a deer out of season, process it and throw the carcass in the hog pen. He said by morning all you could find were the hooves.

I think that's a proper disposal proceedure for terrorists.

LOL! I think you're onto something there RiverRunner!