Went hog hunting with a buddy a few days ago. It was his first time pig hunting/hunting with thermal and it was only my second time. We got on a group within 45 minutes of riding around, and stalked to about 70-80 yards. He takes his shot, all the pigs scatter, and the one he shot runs off to not be recovered. He has video record on his thermal, so I rewatched the footage to see how everything went down. It looked like his crosshairs settled right behind the front shoulder and slightly low, with the pig slightly quartered toward us. The thing I was wondering about is, as the pig started to run away, you could see a couple of little heat spots falling onto the ground. My first thought was blood, but he was using 75 grain TAP 5.56. And 5.56 isn’t necessarily known to leave the best blood trails. I talked to another buddy the next day that pig hunts a lot about it, and he said in his experience, it was most likely either blood or crap. So I figured I’d ask everyone else’s experiences. Does fresh pig crap show up that well on thermal?

Fresh poop and urine are both hot. I've killed a lot of pigs and they typically wait to expel waste until they're in the bed of the truck. You probably saw blood - even with 5.56.

Yes, it shows up. If the vegetation isn’t too overgrown, you can definitely see their poop in the thermal

Very interesting. Good to know the odds are he got the hit.

I uploaded the video and I’m adding the link. The pig that rolls is one his buddy shot on his left.
https://youtu.be/l_L8Y91yj34

I have watched cows on green grass shoot crap four to five feet and you can see it well if the weather is cold or cool. Now if it’s the middle of July it’s harder to see because of the ground temperature. I once stalked a big hot rock for a few minutes before I realized it was a rock.

I once shot a pig in the throat and you could clearly see the blood trail for a few minutes on the dead grass. My video recorder screwed up on that hunt. The coolest thing was when I walked up to the pig it had made about thirty yards. To die just a few feet from a creek and the blood could be seen running into the creek and mixing into the water.

Another cool event was to watch a young buck deer working a scrap and jacking off in it. I had a female friend with me and she asked did he just do what I think he did? I said yeah her boyfriend was using regular NV and he said I missed it. I asked her if she recorded it and she replied no. Her boyfriend was really disappointed the optic I had didn’t have the ability to record.

You can also pick up field mice and rats if the cover is not too thick.

I've seen my dogs crap and piss with the thermal scope when playing with it in the back yard.   On a cold evening you can still see the turds half an hour later.

The short answer is yes. You can even see your dog's footprints on a floor as it walks, or touch a wall and you will see your handprint, etc. It is amazing what thermal picks.

Dog crap does

Yes...

Yeah, now I’m not sure. I will say that generally when I’ve seen blood from thermals it’s been more of a spray/pour. What I saw in his video looked more like clumps.

I shot him as he started to take a dump.