Author Topic: Porcupines Abound  (Read 5369 times)

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Offline RogueFarmer

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Porcupines Abound
« on: September 11, 2013, 04:28:03 am »
I just read something that claimed porkies are the only "safe" wild game to eat raw. There are tons around here and you can just walk up to them and club them in the head.

Offline Projectile Vomit

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Re: Porcupines Abound
« Reply #1 on: September 11, 2013, 07:53:52 am »
I've heard that porcupines are the safest animal to eat raw too. I shot a decently-sized porcupine last fall during deer archery season, and ate the liver and heart right from the carcass while field dressing it. I found them to be quite tasty. The muscle meat was okay, it was fairly lean so bland in taste but certainly not as bad as chicken.

Although it's theoretically possible to 'walk right up to one and club it in the head', I advise against that idea. Although they walk slowly, they're very quick to whip their tails around and plant a couple dozen quills into your calf or thigh, and the quills are barbed and a terror to get out. I accidentally got a few in my thigh while carrying the dead porc out of the woods. Nasty!

If you have in mind to kill one, I suggest a simple bow made with a long, thin arrow with a sharpened tip. Neither the bow nor the arrow need be fancy, just sturdy enough to pierce both of the porcupine's lungs so it dies quickly, within a minute or two. That way it doesn't suffer too much, and you don't have to risk getting quills in you when it thrashes about. Or at least the risk is much less.

Alternatively you could make a spear from a sapling, although realize that the closer you get the less predictable the porcupine will become and the quicker and more volatile its movements will be, so be careful. I've heard of folks trying to kill porcupines with spears during survival trips and ending up in the emergency room when quill injuries got infected.
« Last Edit: September 11, 2013, 08:03:21 am by Eric »

Offline RogueFarmer

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Re: Porcupines Abound
« Reply #2 on: September 11, 2013, 11:39:48 am »
Well you got yer cowboys. then there are hunters. and fisherman. farmers. dairymen. hikers. lumber jacks. these are yer standard outdoorsmen. but then as i read in the book wild cow tails, you got your west texas brush cowboys who wore armored leather and bore scars from thorns on their bodies.            then you got yer goat farmers and pig farmers. we generally wear overalls and steel toed boots as well as muck boots all year round. double pleet because no other form of pants can stand up to herding goats through thorn thickets. almost everything it sometimes seems like in good goat country everything grows a thorn. i am also six foot nine and i use a really long steel pipe. my neighbor skins them and eats them all the time. he traps them and then clubs them. clubing done properly is one of the most humane ways to kill an animal, it stums them unconscious in the first whack. shooting them ruins part of the animal. even a bull could be taken out in one good sledge hammer swing in the right spot.         their quills are not that bad, the first time i used too small a pipe and got whacked in the tip of my index finger. wasn't too bad to get them out at all.

Offline cherimoya_kid

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Re: Porcupines Abound
« Reply #3 on: September 11, 2013, 11:14:03 pm »
       their quills are not that bad, the first time i used too small a pipe and got whacked in the tip of my index finger. wasn't too bad to get them out at all.

Yeah, but there's not much meat on your finger, so it can't go very deep.  The side of the shin would be a different thing, for instance.

Eric, you mentioned that you know people who've gotten infected from the quills.  Have you noticed that wounds tend to not get badly infected on this diet? 

Offline Projectile Vomit

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Re: Porcupines Abound
« Reply #4 on: September 12, 2013, 06:47:08 pm »
CK, I've not had a wound of any sort get badly infected while eating raw, but then I've never had a wound get badly infected irregardless of my eating patterns at any point in my life. I guess I've just gotten lucky.

Offline cherimoya_kid

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Re: Porcupines Abound
« Reply #5 on: September 12, 2013, 08:57:19 pm »
I've noticed that wounds/cuts, especially on my hands, used to get painfully infected before I started eating better.  Now I don't even bother cleaning out little wounds or cuts on my hands.  Even if they get a little infected now, it's very mild.

 

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