Pigs in the Bahamas

[Cadence]

Originally Posted by roverhi

Surprised no one has mentioned trichinosis. It's a worm that burrows into the muscles and can be very painful and the cure isn't much better. It's passed on to humans through undercooked pork and is probably the reason for the Jewish and Moslem ban on eating pork. Growing up, pigs were common on almost every farm and often turned loose to forage so trichinosis was a possibility. Everyone I knew cooked pork till it was shoe leather to be sure to kill the parasite. Hated eating pork as a kid as it was always so dry. It's been largely eradicated with the commercial growing of pigs so not much of a concern today. Every once in a while, someone gets trichinosis in Hawaii from Lau Lau, pork wrapped in Ti leaves and steamed or cooked in an Imu. Always turns out that the pig was feral and shot by hunters. Believe the curing process for ham and bacon also kills trichinosis.

Boy are we really really leading a sheltered life to even come up with the question whether wild pigs have professional medical and dental care. They may get food scraps, water, and the males castrated, but that's about it outside of a modern 1st world farm. The local pig farmers collect food scraps (garbage) from the restaurants and hotels to feed their pigs. They cook the garbage, however as it can be a source of disease. The farmers are very careful about the health of their animals as a case of trichinosis can put them out of business right quick.

As I recall trichinosis is a parasite (worm) which lodges in the muscle tissue and is quite painful. Is that not the reason to thoroughly cooking pork? It may not be as prevalent today with domestic pigs in developed nations?

[reed1v]

Plus rabies. Wild pigs can carry rabies and there is not much you can do if you get that on contact. Your dead.

[Rustic Charm]

Originally Posted by reed1v

Plus rabies. Wild pigs can carry rabies and there is not much you can do if you get that on contact. Your dead.

Rabies is treatable, though highly dangerous. It is treatable. And to catch Rabies you would have to be bitten, or drink their milk perhaps.

If pigs in that area were known to have Rabies, they would all most likely be destroyed. So, Rabies IMO is pretty unlikely.

Wild animals have less likelyhood of having Rabies, as much as domesticated gone wild have.

[reed1v]

Your wrong. Rabies is common with wild animals, and by the time symptoms of rabies affects a human, its mostly untreatable. Dealt with that a lot in the outlying islands around Panama while in the Peace Corps.

[Canibul]

Rabies is a bit of a problem in the Bahamas, according to the people here who we have to deal with when flying in and out with the dog. They're pretty strict about bringing dogs into the Turks and Caicos.

[cheoah]

Trichinosis is from eating infected pork. Rats are a vector for trich, cats are for toxoplasmosis. Cooking pork properly handled trichinosis but not gonna get it hanging around the pigs. On my farm, we froze under -15 for a few weeks which kills potential worms in the muscle. Foodies cook pork to lower temps these days so we took the time to freeze just in case they ate stuff at 145 or less, which is not unbelievable. Had a large walk-in and production and delivery logistics accommodated this practice, which you should do at home if practical - if you're gonna cook rarer pork.

Hopefully it's clear now that there are many zoonotic diseases shared between humans and pigs. We accommodated long term research on our farm with the university to test fecals on our pigs and our farm staff. That research was replicated on many other farms.

The tapeworm treatment listed above sounds terrible. For ascarids - look like long earthworms - I think it's just mebendazole or whatever for a few days.

I think the most risk a pork eater might encounter these days is cured pork products without nitrates added. This would be a salami hung at 60 degrees for a couple months with only salt, or maybe a rolled pancetta hung for a while. Celery root powder or other natural sources of nitrate are used in local or artisanal cured products but it's worth thinking about. Botulism is a nasty disease and adding s nitrite takes care of that. Large companies like Applegate use celery root powder too in bacon, and much harder to control the amount of nitrate in final cooked product than with commercial product 'pink salt'. This is some drift here but thought might be interesting since trichinosis and food borne illness was brought up. Botulism treatment is rough, the antibiotic has nasty side effects I'm told.

[Rustic Charm]

Originally Posted by reed1v

Your wrong. Rabies is common with wild animals, and by the time symptoms of rabies affects a human, its mostly untreatable. Dealt with that a lot in the outlying islands around Panama while in the Peace Corps.

Once 'symptoms' appear, then yes, it becomes more serious to treat. In almost all cases 'before symptoms' appear, if the person bitten seeks treatment, then it's preventable.

And if a person is bitten by any animal in a third world country then they should seek treatement immediately. If treatment is received within ten days, there's a very good likelyhood of being succesfully treated. That bit is not rocket science.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabies#Treatment

And whether Rabies is 'common' in wild animals, is not something I'd care to get into debating. Obviously any warm blooded wild animal can have rabies. But if you simply google it a little, you will find that within wild animal populations it tends to be well controlled. It's when the 'wild' animals then becomes involved with 'domesticated' animals and humans, again in third world areas that rabies becomes an issue.

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs099/en/

[Cadence]

Originally Posted by dannc

Not the first time someone sold tapeworms for weight loss:





Later,
Dan

I know that. Just a quip on Dr. Oz. He will tout anything.

[Seymore]

Originally Posted by zboss

I mean, being wild they could have all kind of diseases and parasites and I have seen people kissing them on the snouts, laying skin to skin, swimming with them in close proximity, etc..

That kinda oogs me out and I have to wonder... is there not a concern of them passing these parasites and diseases between themselves and the people or maybe my cats on board?

Valid concern. Depends on when the people who kiss them and lay with them have had their last medical checkup and how thorough it was.

[zboss]

Originally Posted by StuM

That's not what you pull a tapeworm out of.




(Yes, I ended my sentence with a preposition. Get over it, it's an obsolete rule!)

I saw that in a 10th grade science class movie! It stuck with me!

[darylat8750]

There are not many places on this earth where the animals don't belong to somebody. I'm betting those few are a lot more remote than the Caribbean islands.

My 65+ year old Mother had several long term health issues and was seen by a doctor every couple of months. She started having nightmares. They got progressively worse. She went in for her normal appointment and her doctor said "You look terrible , what's going on." She told him about the nightmares. He said "Weren't you in the Caribbean islands recently?" (Ya gotta love small towns.) Yes she had been. He had been a MASH Dr. in 'Nam. "Let me run some blood tests." She had a tape worm the larve of which had gotten into her through cracked skin on her feet while walking on the beach. Dad said the size of the thing when expelled was really impressive. If you start having nightmares see a Dr. that knows about the tropics.

I also raised hogs. They are cleaner than most animals and given the choice they will not defecate where they sleep. Given a long narrow pen they will poop on one end and bed down on the other. Woe be the dummy who doesn't follow that rule. If two adult pigs are fighting and you don't have a panel to shove between them just stand clear and let them work it out.

DON'T KISS THEM!

[exMaggieDrum]

You get used to pigs going across the Pacific on all the islands. You can hear them on your boat at the anchorages, and they are roaming everywhere. They may look feral but are usually owned by someone. In the true outback there are the true wild ones. Some of the islanders will ask for .22 rifle bullets to go hunting with (huge fines and possible boat confiscation if you are caught with any ammo much less trading or giving it away).

But we loved the little porkers but always assumed they probably had some sort of health issues so wouldn't think of getting that close. They never tried to get close to us so it was always a mutual thing. Now chickens we learned to hate. I grew up partially on farms and roosters crowed at dawn and occasionally at night. But on the friggin island they crowed all night long! Loudly! Wake up the dead type of crowing. And don't get me started about dogs barking at night. So much for the idea of peace and quiet on a sailboat at anchor. At least the pigs didn't make much noise (unless someone was butchering one and then they squealed like a stuck pig). One took longer then an hour to die so the guy doing it was not very good. The moo shu pork was very good that night though.

[Cadence]

Speaking of Oriental good dishes. I had some great short rib at Hemstead LI. Years later I asked what had happened to the restaurant. It was closed because cats were found in there dumpster. ???

[ramblinrod]

Originally Posted by zboss

Ok. Please forgive my ignorance here. I know nothing about pig health or animal health in general except what I know about my own cats.

Do the wild pigs in the Abacos and over on Staniel Cay get vet treatment?

I mean, being wild they could have all kind of diseases and parasites and I have seen people kissing them on the snouts, laying skin to skin, swimming with them in close proximity, etc..

That kinda oogs me out and I have to wonder... is there not a concern of them passing these parasites and diseases between themselves and the people or maybe my cats on board?

I'm more concerned about how some boaters may infect the pigs!

[Cadence]

Originally Posted by ramblinrod

I'm more concerned about how some boaters may infect the pigs!

A great quip. The whole thing has come to those that lay down with dogs come up with fleas. Only uncared for dogs. Can't see laying down with pigs even if cared for, to each his own.

I thought it was wild pigs. I'd have to go with those on islands belong to someone.

Boating an pigs?