I was reading an article on feral swine in a New Mexico Department of Game and Fish publication, in which the author stated that "most" feral swine carry trichinosis. Turns out that statement is just plain wrong. Here is an excellent article on the subject:

https://honest-food.net/on-trichinosis-in-wild-game/

Nice article, thanks.

I remember when I was little my dad cautioned against hunting/eating cottontails in warm weather due to fear of tric. Not sure there was any scientific basis for that. I think his dad had told him the same thing.

Ken, that guy has a pretty swell Web site to boot.

quote:

Originally posted by Kensco:
Nice article, thanks.

I remember when I was little my dad cautioned against hunting/eating cottontails in warm weather due to fear of tric. Not sure there was any scientific basis for that. I think his dad had told him the same thing.

You might be thinking of tularamia.

What difference does it make? Surely anyone in here is not going to eat raw wild hog?

Please do not eat raw wild pig or rabbit; the bacteria is killed by cooking.
It is a myth that rabbit fever (tularemia) is killed by the first frost; if a rabbit has it before the frost, he will still have it.
Where that admonition came from is that the ticks are killed by the frost, and the spread of tularemia is greatly slowed by frost.
And by then, most rabbits with it will have died on their own.
Also, do not shoot a slow rabbit; shoot only the fast ones. Unfortunately, hogs with Trichinosis are not slowed by it much.
And cook them.

Charlie, I think the main risk would be in preparing charcuterie with feral swine meat, but the guy covered how to do this in the blog.
Tom, I killed a rabbit that definitely had tularemia many years ago -- spotted liver and all. I won't handle them without nitrile gloves.

You are correct. It was tularemia.

Bill, thanks for the reference. It is an excellent article.

i think the first frost for rabbits & squirrels idea is they will have healed up from the bot fly larva emerging through the skin

good post Bill,thanks

I’ve used gloves for rabbit for 55 years. The spotter liver is a give away.

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Good article. Thanks for posting.

In Germany all/any wild boar shot have to be examined and tested for tric by the State vet.

There are State cool houses where you take your carcass and hang it inside. You text / email the vet and he'll call by and take a tissue sample for testing. He then sends you the ok or not ok by text or email and if ok you collect the pig and all good. If not ok the vet collects it and destroys it. Costs $15/- a pop and is the law !

I am sure the odd vet has taken the odd healthy pig in error but hey ho ....

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The old time butchers in my family always said to look at the liver for meat quality !
In older days [Etruscan] priests devined the future by examining the liver . In the museum in Piacenza It there is a bronze liver to teach them !! A connection ?

Growing up hunting birds and Small game in NM, we were always cautioned to kill rabbits AFTER the frosts had come.
Tularemia was the reason.

Not sure if it is any more than an old wives tail, but I never saw a sick rabbit any time of years.

Rabbits had bots during the summer, but were not sick.

As an aside I took some time one summer to collect ectoparasites for one of the grad students and when I went into the prairie dog town, all the locals were waiting to watch me die of the PLAGUE! I was glad to disappoint them and some really may have actually been disappointed.

I do remember there was one group of folks with trichinosis but it was from a bear that they had jerked and shared the bounty.

quote:

Originally posted by TCLouis:
Growing up hunting birds and Small game in NM, we were always cautioned to kill rabbits AFTER the frosts had come.
Tularemia was the reason.

Not sure if it is any more than an old wives tail, but I never saw a sick rabbit any time of years.

My dad always told me the same thing when I was kid growing up in Indiana.

Spotted liver is correct...Cooking may kill the culprit, but I wait until cold weather to eat cotton tails, and trust spotted livers, Old wives tale, maybe, don't know, but the old timers said it was so, so I'll go with them, they ate more rabbit than I...

quote:

Not sure if it is any more than an old wives tail, but I never saw a sick rabbit any time of years.

Plus One on that. I have killed and eaten cottontails and jackrabbits for most of my 67 years and have never run across a sick one personally.

I know people that have, so I know they are out there, I have just been lucky.

Randall, maybe Texas is simply blessed with healthier bunnies. The one I killed that had the spotted liver was a jackrabbit taken while quail hunting in Humboldt County, California, back when I was in high school. Last rabbit I killed was a cottontail in the Oregon Cascades. Healthy liver, but lordy what a herd of fleas.

I really don't know Bill. I have killed rabbits 12 months out of the year for 50 years now and have never had a problem, cottontails or Jacks. Maybe I have just been lucky.