This is one of those serendipitous things that happens. We're almost certainly not the first ones to use it but I haven't heard of it before.

Friends of mine were trying to clean a hog in an old barn the other night.......didn't have an ax, machete, or meat saw so looked around and found an old limb cutter/trimmer (manual, not powered). They used it to cut the legs off, and cut the ribs off.....worked like a charm.

So we tried it at my place. We've used meat saws, machetes, etc and this is quicker and slicker than any of them, especially for removing the ribs. We used the full sized limb cutter, that is the handles are about 2 1/2 feet long or so. I may look for one with shorter handles which would make it handier if the leverage is still there or I may cut the handles off of the one we have. To remove ribs for cooking, we cut the front "connecting part" off, and then cut the ribs from the spinal column. Works just as well for deer too, but in my experience, the ribs on deer aren't very good unless they're from a buck or doe that has very little body fat. Deer fat has kind of a "clingy" texture which is not very tasty when you're eating the ribs. The reason the limb cutter works so well is that it doesn't have the problem with movement/swinging that meat saws, etc have, it just grabs and cuts.

Everyone does it differently, but, unless it is a trophy to be caped, we hang our deer and hogs from the head. Unless we're transporting them whole for some reason, after gutting them, we cut the intestines off even with the pelvic canal opening, and then, basically in order, we take the shoulders, backstraps, tenderloins, hindquarters, ribs, and neck without splitting the pelvis. When we skin hogs, after ringing the neck, I normally split the hide down the back. Makes it easier and faster to skin IMO. Just a few ideas that might help someone. Try the limb cutter, you'll like it.

I agree. I call them loppers - works great on legs and necks, sometimes takes 2 or 3 tries on necks. Beats sawing.

Seen them use on deer legs a lot., but never on ribs.

Also seen the Sawzall used in deer camp!

Now for a real unusual tip, a gut on another board used some kind of plucking device to get all the hair off some young pigs for cooking!

quote:

Originally posted by Charles_Helm:
Seen them use on deer legs a lot., but never on ribs.

Also seen the Sawzall used in deer camp!

Now for a real unusual tip, a gut on another board used some kind of plucking device to get all the hair off some young pigs for cooking!

Like how they scald hogs commercially?

No scalding used. I'll try to dig up the discussion. Did not believe it would work myself.

Now these were pretty small pigs.

Edit: Looks like I was wrong as he did use some hot water, but not boiling.

Pictures here.

I agree. I have used loppers on game for years. They are a "must have" in the truck or in camp.

Bob

Yep, what Bob said. Never go huntin' with out them.

I believe it is Eberlestock that has the slogan
"go in lite and come out heavy.
To heck with that , go in heavy and come out heavier.

I don't leave home without these Items in my skinnin' bag.
GWB



Loppers,cut proof glove, latex gloves,
bone saw, sawzall knives for caping/skinnning, breakin' brisket etc. gallons storage bags, and a "butt out" tool.

quote:

Also seen the Sawzall used in deer camp!

As my Daddy says, "Never do anything yourself that electricity can do for you."

LWD

I most always hang my animals upside down.

After skinning I take off the shoulders first, then the back straps, then the ribs if is a ig, then the tenderloins, then I take the neck meat.

I cut off the spine near the hans, set the hams on our meat table and with a knife seperate the hams from the pelvis bone.

I only use a saw, a Gerber with a bone blade, to cut off pig ribs.

I like the ribs short, so I cut them in half while they are still on the pig, then cut the other half off the back bone.

I do not use a saw on the legs I just disjoint the feet end off them with my knife.

+1 on Sawzall.

I keep one in my truck toolbox at all times just for splitting carcasses, taking ribs, and lopping off feet and heads.

My friends that haven't see it in action for the first time think I'm totally nuts when I pull it out, but by the time the job is done they say they'd like to do the same next time.

I like got the loppers and the sawzall (the battery powered DeWalt is nifty!)

I do like to hang game head up when skinning except when doing capes for mounting. Is just easier to start the skin off at the neck and then shoulders and work down.

Piggies are much better glued together than whitetail

we have a ton of hogs out at our place near Graham TX. (We traped a hundred and thirty five in a three month period last winter.) When we get a bunch in the trap, maybe 6 or 7 I skin their backs and legs, take out the backstrap and cut the legs off and never gut them. The only thing is you hve to be carefull when you cut the back legs off not to puncture the abdomin. This works great you can process about 5 of the medium sized pigs in an hour.
We have put hog panels up around all of our deer feeders but still are overrun.

quote:

Originally posted by garretttodd:

We have put hog panels up around all of our deer feeders but still are overrun.

Hey garrett. Curious. How long did it take your deer to figure out they had to jump the panels to get to the good stuff? Are they full heighth 4' panels?

quote:

Originally posted by garretttodd:
we have a ton of hogs out at our place near Graham TX. (We traped a hundred and thirty five in a three month period last winter.) When we get a bunch in the trap, maybe 6 or 7 I skin their backs and legs, take out the backstrap and cut the legs off and never gut them. The only thing is you hve to be carefull when you cut the back legs off not to puncture the abdomin. This works great you can process about 5 of the medium sized pigs in an hour.
We have put hog panels up around all of our deer feeders but still are overrun.

What about the tenderloins? Don't tell me you're throwing away the best meat on the hog to save time and dealing with guts.

daniel77

Exactly... That is the best meat on the whole pig.

Plus I like to "get inside" and see what the bullet did.

quote:

Originally posted by daniel77:
What about the tenderloins? Don't tell me you're throwing away the best meat on the hog to save time and dealing with guts.

Agreed. Would be a shame to waste those delicious little morsels.

Hope you fellas don't mind a little tangent here, but...

"Tenderloins" (psoas muscles) are technically not in the abdomen, but are a "retroperitoneal" muscle located between the abdominal cavity and the lower (lumbar) spine. This is the same anatomic space occupied by the kidneys.

Point being, with a little care, tenderloins can be removed using a small incision made along the upper flank just behind the last rib and parallel to the spine. Doing it this way, you never have to open the belly to get to the delicious tender morsels we all love so much.

Make your incision approximately where the dotted lines converge between the "Rump" and "Backstrap" in this image:



To give you a better idea of what we're dealign wiht, below are the psoas muscles (major and minor) as found in us humans, knuckle draggers included. In humans, they get quite a workout as they help to lift the leg (provide "flexion") with each step. That's only because we walk upright. In deer and other quadrupeds, they get less of workout because the leg is already in the flexed position and they work much less, hence their juicy tenderness.

Alright! Alright! Enough of all this mumbo jumbo shit... I'm hungry!

quote:

Originally posted by daniel77:

quote:

Originally posted by garretttodd:
we have a ton of hogs out at our place near Graham TX. (We traped a hundred and thirty five in a three month period last winter.) When we get a bunch in the trap, maybe 6 or 7 I skin their backs and legs, take out the backstrap and cut the legs off and never gut them. The only thing is you hve to be carefull when you cut the back legs off not to puncture the abdomin. This works great you can process about 5 of the medium sized pigs in an hour.
We have put hog panels up around all of our deer feeders but still are overrun.

What about the tenderloins? Don't tell me you're throwing away the best meat on the hog to save time and dealing with guts.

Why not? It saves tons of time when you're dealing with multiple hogs. I'll take the backstraps and throw the rest away in a heartbeat if I'm in a rush. If I'm in a real rush, I just leave the damn thing.

Most of the "save every morsel" group don't have to skin 6 to a dozen hogs at times.

I could have em out in a couple of minutes. If you clean that many you get good at it.

Waste not want not.

quote:

I could have em out in a couple of minutes. If you clean that many you get good at it.

Yeah, right.

I try not to waste them, I've given half a dozen away in the last couple of weeks, but if I've got a full freezer of hogs, with more deer on the way, fooling with a hog is not on the table. If I can't find someone to take them and I usually deliver, then I'll either take just the backstraps or chunk 'em. After a long dry spell, we're killing them right and left, I gave away a truck full the other night, I shot a boar weighed 220 and my son Adam killed a boar and a sow, 180 and 130. All weights off scales. Friend shot 3 down on my place yesterday. Apparently had a cor-lokt bullet failure and only recovered 2 sows. Third one was down, apparently dying, he even stabbed with his mini-pocket knife 3 times, and left to die with a giant hole in her side, came back and that "dead" sow was gone. We looked for an hour but she was really gone, hard to track in water.

BTW, I don't claim to be all that fast, but working with my buddy (who is a butcher and he's faster than I am), we can start with the hog on the ground in front of the hanger, and have a good sized hog skinned, gutted, quartered, backstrapped, tenderloined, ribbed, and on ice in less than 30 minutes with the remains in the gut bucket ready to be hauled off, with time off for drinking a beer or two. He and I are careful, haven't cut each other yet. Key is not to make any fast moves or different area cuts without making sure the other guy knows what you're doing.

I'm a bit curious fat cat as to how someone can seem to go out of their way to do good deeds and then go out of their way to be an asshole. I saw where you posted for an open invite to hog hunt on your place free of charge a few months ago. I thought that was a damn nice thing for you to do. That act made me think that maybe I'd mis-characterized you. Then you turn right back into a dick. What gives?

If you really are as successful as you claim to be, why do you have such a need to act like an ass and try to belittle others?

BTW, how freakin long should it take to slit open the thin sheet of muscle holding in the guts, allow the guts to fall out, and cut the TLs at the top and bottom. I mostly use my fingers to remove them. I can't see it taking more than a couple of minutes, and if you want to haul a fresh carcass to me, I'd be glad to show you. Here's to hoping you get over your arrogance (in a thread where you bring up a new way that everyone else has been using for years no less) and need to act so superior and confrontational.

Daniel, I didn't think he was being rude or a dick at all. I just thought he was just disagreeing with you, no big deal.

When I went on my hunt this year in Florida, the outfitter did it just as garretttodd suggests. For the amount he had to clean that night, I didn't mind not having the tenderloins. His comment was that the ribs on those hogs were just not that good and if he didn't have to get the inside the hog smell on the outside, it was fine with me.

I think we need to remember that one man's sweet tasty morsels are another man's just another part of a pest to get rid of.

Gato, y'all are welcome around my table any time.

It's not just that post, or this thread, or him. I'm getting a bit sick of the infantile "you're a dumbass" crap, and the guys who just want to be the fly in the ointment. I come here to relax and enjoy myself, not relive junior high. The Frank Martinez and .223 for deer threads are prime examples. I've also had a pretty bad day. Maybe I lashed out when I shouldn't have.
If I unfairly called him a dick, though, from the totality of his posts, I don't think I did, I apologize. Maybe I should just put Fat Cat back on ignore.

Considering the overall quality of your posts, the mere possibility that you are going to ignore me helps make my day. See ya.

LarryS:

Thanks for the support and you're welcome to drop by my place anytime. Come on down.

BTW, for the rest of the rational people in here, the reason I said BS on the 2 minute statement is that I have cleaned hundreds of hogs, consider myself reasonably quick if pushed, and BY FAR, the slowest part after the skinning is removing the guts reasonably carefully so you don't get any stomach, intestine, urine, or fecal matter on the meat. After doing that, you have to reach in and get the tenderloins out. No, it doesn't take forever, but I don't think you can do it in a manner to preserve the best quality of meat in 2 minutes. Now, if someone said simply, "You can't get them out in 2 minutes, period." I'm reasonably sure I could slash through the guts and do it or, maybe with practice I could do it the way Kenati mentioned above. To me, that way looks like it would take some getting used to, since you're working in the dark, so to speak. Maybe Daniel77 is the Speedygonzales of hog cleaners, but I doubt it, thus the post above. End of discussion.

Gentlemen relax, we all go thru odd moods at times. I like to hang my game upside down, truly consider my cordless sawsall a gift from God and have in the presence of cold, poor light and other problems left the tenderloins with the carcass. And in the presence of a friend pulling the hide down for me processed many hogs in less than 30 minutes. Into quarters, backstrap and ribs to put on ice anyway, wrapping and packaging takes a bit more of my time.

quote:

Originally posted by Gatogordo:
the slowest part after the skinning is removing the guts reasonably carefully so you don't get any stomach, intestine, urine, or fecal matter on the meat. After doing that, you have to reach in and get the tenderloins out. No, it doesn't take forever, but I don't think you can do it in a manner to preserve the best quality of meat in 2 minutes.

We disagree on what the more difficult parts of cleaning an animal are. I can gut one pretty quick. I always liked the butchering part, and thus the chore generally fell to me no matter who killed the animal. I may well be faster and more experienced than most at this sort of thing, though I saw another guy once who took a doe from field dressed to quartered (including BS and TL) and in the ice chest in under 8 minutes. We timed him.
BTW, I didn't say exactly two minutes, as in not a second over 120. Don't think most are quite so literal. I know it wouldn't take me more than five, especially with a good setup for cleaning game, i.e. lights, water, gambrel, etc. If you don't think the TL's are worth a few minutes, then it's your waste loss. I hunt hogs from the perspective of a game animal that happens to be a pest. I understand some view them as a pest that happens to be edible and thus wasting meat may not seem the same as it would with an elk.

I am pretty good at gutting and butchering deer and hogs. Hogs are a bit tougher to skin because of the mud, grassburs, thick hide that's tougher to pull off. I did on the hog I killed saturday get the tenderloins. If done like I do it getting the guts out is slick easy no muss and if you stand back not even any blood on your toes.

I would agree that gutting a hog is the most delicate, time consuming part.....

But I ALWAYS do it. I like the tenderloins.

Many times I save the heart as well.

That is if I have not shot it.
Even then I save it for the wife for fishing bait on our pond.

.story time.....
Several years ago, I hung a 350 lb sow in a tree to gut and prepare for a whole-hog BBQ. But, I had NO way to dip and strip the hair layer. So, being the absolute idiot I am famous for, I stood in a pool of blood and a huge swarm of flies, and used an electric barber clippers. It was not pleasant or quick.
The result was not too bad....and the cooking actually eliminated any offensive hair, such that the skin was crispily edible.
But, I would never do that again.

quote:

Originally posted by conifer:
.such that the skin was crispily edible.

You are shitting us, right?!?! Hahaha!!

That reminds me of a vivid childhood memory... On random occasions, there would be this God awful pungent smell of burnt hair that would engulf the surrounding area where I lived. One day, my brother and I hopped on our bicycles to explore the origin of this olfactory offensive. After being led by our noses, we discovered the source: Vietmanese natives cooking dogs whole on an open pit fire. One was already "done" and they had flat sided sticks scraping hair off of the bloated carcasses. Needless to say, I was completely fouled out.


[Edited: Hey conifer, I hope I did not offend you by my comments. I was just amused by the coincidental story with an old memory. No flame intended! ]

Now that some of you fucking children have gotten your shit out of the way, maybe we can return to the subject.

A person, if they have any brains about them, can recover/take a lot of meat off of a pig, WITHOUT, gutting it.

If a person wants to go to the time and effort to get the ribs, Go For It, no problem.

If they don't, then the skin can be split down the back and the hams, front shoulders, back straps and tenderloins can be removed without gutting the animal.

I have seen it done and done it.

Not that much meat is lost and it really does not take that long.

Why don't some of you folks reel your little dicks back in and quit trying to prove something over the internet that your ass could not back up in person.

quote:

Originally posted by Geedubya:
I believe it is Eberlestock that has the slogan
"go in lite and come out heavy.
To heck with that , go in heavy and come out heavier.

I don't leave home without these Items in my skinnin' bag.
GWB



Loppers,cut proof glove, latex gloves,
bone saw, sawzall knives for caping/skinnning, breakin' brisket etc. gallons storage bags, and a "butt out" tool.

Love the electric saw!

A few years ago a mate and I decided to spit roast an whole pig for about 100 friends. We set a date in early June, which date was itself set by the fact that the according to the farmer we were buying the pig from, said pig would be a delectable 35-40 kgs of tender pork.

Then women got involved and after much inane faffing the eventual date for the roast fell back until late July.

We arrived at the farm the day before the roast to discover that instead of our envisaged 40 kg porker we had a 70 kg baconer the size of a moped on our hands. Being rank amateur city boys we had not expected our pig to grow in during the two month delay......

I tell this story becasue the pig was far two big for our spit mechanism and I ended up one very surreal morning using the kind of saw you have pictured up there to take a 1 foot section out of the ribs of the pig, stick it back together with buthcers twine like some sort of Frankenstein's party lunch centrepiece and then finally drill through the shoulders and pelvic bones with a cordless to properly fix it to the spit!

The neighbours avoided me for a while after that.....

Anyway, kudos on embracing modern technology in the field, when I finally get round to getting a dedicated shooting truck I'll be taking inspiration as to field dressing equipment from your post.

quote:

Originally posted by conifer:
.story time.....
Several years ago, I hung a 350 lb sow in a tree to gut and prepare for a whole-hog BBQ. But, I had NO way to dip and strip the hair layer. So, being the absolute idiot I am famous for, I stood in a pool of blood and a huge swarm of flies, and used an electric barber clippers. It was not pleasant or quick.
The result was not too bad....and the cooking actually eliminated any offensive hair, such that the skin was crispily edible.
But, I would never do that again.

Been there, done that.

the pig I posted about above turned up hairy, to our total surprise of course, and so it was a session with a six pack and a cut throat razor shaving the bugger the night before!.

When we do spit roasts now we just buy the animal from the butcher, hunted game honourably excepted of course.

quote:

Anyway, kudos on embracing modern technology in the field, when I finally get round to getting a dedicated shooting truck I'll be taking inspiration as to field dressing equipment from your post.

I note that there is a nice vintage Rolls Royce shooting brake for sale in the US for what seems a reasonable price. It's described as needing some TLC but very presentable and usable as is. I'm sure shipping it back to the old soil would not be too excessive for a man of your means.......might as well hunt in the style to which you'd like to become accustomed. With a bit of modification, I'm sure you could run an electric saw extension cord out of the dash so you could clean close to your loading vehicle.

Opps, my mistake, make that so "your butler" could clean close to the vehicle.

I have to say that Crazy never fails to wake up a thread for me!

quote:

Originally posted by Gatogordo:

quote:

Anyway, kudos on embracing modern technology in the field, when I finally get round to getting a dedicated shooting truck I'll be taking inspiration as to field dressing equipment from your post.

I note that there is a nice vintage Rolls Royce shooting brake for sale in the US for what seems a reasonable price. It's described as needing some TLC but very presentable and usable as is. I'm sure shipping it back to the old soil would not be too excessive for a man of your means.......might as well hunt in the style to which you'd like to become accustomed. With a bit of modification, I'm sure you could run an electric saw extension cord out of the dash so you could clean close to your loading vehicle.

Those shooting brakes are alright for driven days I suppose, but not quite then thing for deer stalking i'm sure you'll agree Gato.

I'm sure you're joking about the Butler, staff on a stalking expedition?! When one has has a ghillie??!? Surely you jest sir!

I did find one or two examples of the American coachbuilder's hunting truck art which I reproduce here here for your perusal This I assume is for those brush hunting situations Where it would be bloody handy to have a helicopter to locate dead deer .

This one I assume must be a product of what you wayward colonials call "still hunting" , still the merits of a roof and comfortable seat can't be overstated by this hunter.

I do think that the monster truck boys, a la have got it about right for our muddy island, but a little difficult to get on with on a day to day basis in London.

You Texans have aeroplanes for flying about the acreage, surely you could recommend a better shooting truck than the roller?

Please bear in mind though that in England roads have bends and cars are expected to more or less get round them, ta.

quote:

Originally posted by Steve Latham:
I have to say that Crazy never fails to wake up a thread for me!

Behave!