Thanks Dave! I've whacked right about 70 wild hogs in my hunting career, that's what got me into making my own sausage and smoking my own hams. As you can see from the date of this post I've been doing this for quite some time, stopped bringing the dead hogs to the butcher shop right around 20 years ago or more. For at least the last five years I've stopped using my own seasoning mix on the sausage I make, I use a pre-mixed 260-B package from PS Seasonings, get the same great flavor in my sausage each and every time. No one, including myself, has ever gotten sick from eating the hams or sausage I process. If you know what you are doing after the trigger get pulled you get the animal gutted, skinned, and into a cooler ASAP, without getting a bunch of piss and poop running all over the meat. Myself, I don't accept or eat wild game meat killed by others, maybe another great reason why I've never gotten sick, I'm just not all that trusting in the capabilities of others. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand that all meat, not just wild game, must be cooked to safe standards to avoid health issues.
PS. Just a little side note here, presentation counts. When or if you are ever offered homemade sausage by a friend take a close look before accepting. If the sausages are different lengths and thicknesses that's a sign the maker didn't take pride in what he was producing, and could be a good indicator as to the safety practices he followed, or didn't follow, when making the links. Who's kidding who, when you get food sick there's no one to blame but yourself. RAY