When people say a 14 inch Warthog - what does 14 inches represent? The length of the grinder on the outside curve from the gum or with the tusk removed? Or something else?

Thanks for any info you can give.

Cheers.

GG

With the tusks extracted, measure around the curve.

Thanks new-guy.

GG

I have always been a bit confused on this subject also.I see people quoting inches for a warthog in a pic and sometimes I just have to shake my head. 16 inches, 18 inches ,etc. and sometimes all I see is a couple inches protruding past the lip on either side. I have always wondered what in tarnation they were measuring?

eyedoc,

why the confusion? Most guys don't know an honest six inches from their perceived nine inches. And you have questions on 16 and 18 inches?

Easy Dan- People get mad enough when you question the length of their warthog tusk. You go to questioning their manhood and the responses could get real ugly .

Ann,
Nice bow kill.

My PH measured this warthog at 13.5 inches...

This one from SA last June went 14 and 14 1/4. If you want it to even look bigger go european like I did!

The question of “How are warthog tusks measured?†was quite correctly answered by new_guy.

How about the question: “How should warthog tusks be measured?â€

I must be absolutely crazy to even dare question the wisdom of the late Mr. Roland Ward. But what really makes a “nice†warthog trophy? A well balanced pair of thick long curved tusks?†The warthog has “tusksâ€, just like an elephant! Why not simply take the weight of the tusks as the criterion for a trophy? Or, as tusks loose a bit of weight during drying, the volume? Or some other measure of the volume of the tusks. For example, one could measure the weight of the water replaced by the tusks. But this would be a cumbersome method, and totally impractical for field measurement. As is the current method that require the tusks to be removed before measurement!

Let me now propose a simple measurement that can be done immediately on getting to the dead trophy: Measure the tusks from the tip of one, along the bottom curve, through the mouth to the tip of the other tusk. One can add the refinement of measuring the circumference of each tusk at the edge of the gums and adding this to the total length. A further possible refinement would be to measure the direct distance tip to tip of the bottom tusks. This total “score†is IMHO a better indication of the total mass of ivory carried by the warthog. It can all be done with a freshly killed pig, or one which has been caped and prepared for boiling off the skull.

I’ve not actually measured a warthog like this, and can take only an educated guess of what score for the 3 mentioned options should be equivalent to a Roland Ward size?

Any suggestions?

In good hunting.

Andrew McLaren

SCsportsman- Did your PH measure/estimate the length in the field or did he measure it after boiling the skull and removing the tusks. According to these guys, whom I have no reason not to believe, the tusks must come out to be peasured properly. I have seen many give the length when I am nearly certain the tusks were intact in the skull. Is there a quick and dirty way to estimate what is in the skull and estimate length before removing tusk? Or are PH's just giving us an educated guess?

Andrew-I like the idea of measuring tip to tip along the curve and through the mouth with tusks intact in skull. Rewards true visible length as well as spread.

PS- All three pigs in the photos shown are keepers "FOR SURE".

the field measurement for RW is from the gum on the the outside curve to the tip

CIC measurement:

My PH took a field mesurement and said 11,5".
I´m not shure how he did it course I was still in high heavens after the stalk

These are all great pigs. The more I look into this the more different ways to measure seem to show up. No real hard standard to make comparisons meaningful.