javelina

Maybe a stupid question, but are they edible?

Rmocarsky

I've had it once at a wild game dinner. It was fine.

Yes

Yes its better than wild hog for sure

Yes as long as you get those nasty glands off them soon after the kill

Killed one once. Never again. They smell like someone who has horrible bad body odor mixed with a horse. I shot a fairly large one and honestly it wasn't worth the effort. Hind quarters and tiny straps was really all I got from it. Brined the meat for nearly two weeks and made summer sausages out of them. As for them being as good eating as wild hog. Not even remotely close.

you didnt clean it well then.

You need to wash them before the knife touches them... then do not hit the gland..

I have eaten many and thought they were good. I would never say they were better than feral hogs though.

Like the carp and cedar plank, do the same with a skunk pig.

I was meticulous with it. Didn't wash it down though. The stench of that thing in the back of my old hunting rig was enough to turn anyone's stomach. I've been around the foulest of things in my line of work for over 20 years. Again for the effort involved I'll save my bullet. Also what many don't realize is they are game animals and must be processed. That gland is also the nastiest looking thing I've ever seen on an animal. Looks like a huge pimple with brown crap oozing out of it. Hind quarters can't be more than 8-12 pounds a piece of them. Again it was fair eating, but nowhere close to a feral hog.

I thought they were pretty good

Guess I'm not an anyone. If you've been around the foulest things then your exaggerating a javalina. Once you skin them it is literally gone. I have never washed any of the ones I processed and never had a bad javi. Have made sausage, jerky, smoked the hams, and made carne guisada with no complaints, my wife and mother eat it as well.

The true points... they are small, there isn't much meat on them, and they are labor intensive for what you get and stink till you get that part taken care of. But i'd bet the vast majority of people who say they are nasty never got past skinning one.

I'll give you that I may have exaggerated a bit. Weeks old dead bodies, people sitting in their own feces for days without bathing are probably worse in the olfactory department. But I'll say it again those rodents/hippos or whatever they are stink pretty darn bad. To me they no longer warrant a bullet because unless its coyote I like to eat what I shoot and again these animals according to law must be processed and not wasted.