I have heard too much (urban legend)BS lately. It's kinda like being pregnant. One either is or isn't. Its in the genes, count them. Ascientest can tell by the hairs. Or go here http://www.texasboars.com/articles/aging.html
and check the teeth.
Looks can be deceiving. The more generations that they are in the wild, the more theydivert bact to the wild type look.

BTW, I'm still interested in seeing pictures of any truly wild 400lber.
thanks, capt david

The pictures I posted of European hogs were pure. I have shot many feral/feral mixes as well. Apparently in a matter of weeks, a domestic hog turned loose starts showing physical differences from his/her captive counterparts. But, there are some characteristics that I believe are signs of European wild boar genes, that are unmistakeable, and a few of the photos recently posted show hogs with unmistakenly European blood.

Here's a picture of the typical Florida wild hog:



Now here's a European piggy:



You are right that there are a lot of urban legends flying around about the blood lines of the hogs in the US, but, like people, there seem to be mixes of everything out there......

i'm not looking to start any sort of arguement here but i have to put forth the information that i have. i have 5 hog skulls from hogs that i have killed in north texas in the last few years. i seriously doubt any "pure russians" exist here. 3 have "the tooth" and 2 do not. that is consistant with the above link. some have "the tooth" and some don't. fair enough. but i also have the skull of a hog i killed in northern iran, back in 1977, not far from the iraqi border, that DOES have "the tooth". from what the link says, i have the skull of a hybrid cross between a domestic/feral and a true russian hog. this seems odd to me, seeing that i killed it in iran, where there are not a lot of domestic hogs, being an islamic country. as i said, not trying to start any trouble, but i find it hard to believe that the hog i killed in a place where there are no domestic hogs(as far as i know????) could be a hybrid. unfortunately, i don't have any pics of the hog taken when i killed it, but i do have the skull and will post pics of "the tooth" if anyone is interested. it definately LOOKED pure russian.

interesting topic. i want to see where this goes.

Post 'em up!! Would love to see them. This isn't arguing, it's discourse!! Who knows, there might not be any pure strains left. I suspect that this is the case in human beings as well. I think most of the wild hogs in this country are muts and some just have more characteristics of European wild boar than others.

Whitworth

That pig in the second picture is a really nice one and does "look" European for sure. How much did it weigh?

Thanks, Jeff! He weighed just a hair over 200-lbs. I shot him with my .416 Remington and he ran like he saw a ghost! The autopsy revealed that his heart was completely shredded, and it didn't seem to slow him down one bit!

this is a sow killed in north texas. the tooth is there

here's a texas boar...no tooth

i'll get a pic of the iranian boar later today

the iranian hog with the "hybrid" tooth

That's very interesting. Are you talking about the tooth immediately behind the cutter?

yes...the small one between the cutter and the group of back teeth. i also have a skull of a smaller hog with that small tooth growing right next to(actually touching) the cutter on one side and no sign at all of the hybrid tooth on the other side. there seems to be a lot a variation when it comes to this extra tooth in the feral pigs. what i want to know is if my "pure russian boar" from iran is really a hybrid of some sort.

With the exception of the animals that have been derived from the Vietnamese Pot Belly pigs, all domestic pigs are descendants of the European/Russian wild pig.

I think the issue with the "tooth" is along the same lines as "Mustangs/Wild Horses' have one less rib than domestic horses.

Some animals may have it some may not.

The things I have used to judge the amount of European/Russian influence on any given animal are:

With piglets, if they are red/reddish brown and have the lighter colored body stripes.

With larger animals, the overall shape.
The ones with the longer head, high front shoulders, sloping back, smaller hindquarters and longer hair are more closely devolved back to the original wild ancestor than the black ones with straight ears/back/tails.

I am sure everyone can come up with their own qualifyers, but I believe if a situation could be set up, where no outside animals of unknown ancestery could get in or be brought in, with in "X" number of generations, the animals would look just like pure European/Russian wild pigs. JMO.

quote:

Originally posted by Crazyhorseconsulting:
With the exception of the animals that have been derived from the Vietnamese Pot Belly pigs, all domestic pigs are descendants of the European/Russian wild pig.

I think the issue with the "tooth" is along the same lines as "Mustangs/Wild Horses' have one less rib than domestic horses.

Some animals may have it some may not.

The things I have used to judge the amount of European/Russian influence on any given animal are:

With piglets, if they are red/reddish brown and have the lighter colored body stripes.

With larger animals, the overall shape.
The ones with the longer head, high front shoulders, sloping back, smaller hindquarters and longer hair are more closely devolved back to the original wild ancestor than the black ones with straight ears/back/tails.

I am sure everyone can come up with their own qualifyers, but I believe if a situation could be set up, where no outside animals of unknown ancestery could get in or be brought in, with in "X" number of generations, the animals would look just like pure European/Russian wild pigs. JMO.

You may be right.

budiceale -- that Iranian hog has huge cutters! What a trophy!

whitworth...thanks. as an 18 year old i was real excited when i killed him. just for the heck of it, here is picture of another hog we killed in iran. i didn't shoot this one. the big guy on the far right did.

quote:

budiceale

I didn't get the same idea as you after a long discussion, with the owner of TBs, on the difference. It is my understanding that 'the tooth' is on both purebreads and crosses. capt david

That is my understanding too; it is a characteristic of pure breed European hogs that appears on hybrids too.

quote:

Originally posted by tiggertate:
That is my understanding too; it is a characteristic of pure breed European hogs that appears on hybrids too.

ok, that makes sense. when i read the link and it said "Only Hybrid Wild Boar will have this tooth. Hybrid is a cross breed between domestic hogs and the Eurasian" i took that to mean that any so called pure Eurasian pig that had this tooth was not actually pure. sorry if i caused any confusion.

I have hunted west of Graham on the Brazos for the last two years. There have been 38 hogs (36 Boars and 2 sows) shot off of my corn feeder, lighted stand at night. I was aware of the Texas Boars info quite some time ago and have looked at each boar shot to check for the "Eurasion Tooth". I did not keep count of those with it, but memory sez about a third of them had the "tooth". I have seen almost no domestic looking hogs there. Most of them had the raised hair on the withers and a stand-up fluff of hair on the smaller rump. Hair being very dark next to skin with brown and lighter tips on the hair yet very thick and up to 2 to 3" long. From the snout to the forehead is almost a long staright line. I have seen very few sows with pigs there, but I have seen a few piglets with the "stripes".
Most of the boars have been in the 125 to 200# range, the only monster seen, but not shot was a light tan with some dark spots, so this was definately a more domestic feral.
I understand that there have been hogs on the Brazos for as long as anybody can remember, so Eurasion lineage is most likely. For the benefit of all native wildlife we would be better off without the feral hog, but as we have them, shoot the hell out of'em and save a
fawn, a turkey nest, a stream and to at least keep the population in check. Oh, hogs are great snake killers so I guess they do have one redeeming quality.

I need to know where you get the lights for you feeder!

I've hunted feral hogs on a ranch in Bosque County, Texas a lot, until last year when my friend died of a massive heart attack. My first hunt, shot a boar that weighed about 350 lbs - I anchored it throught the shoulders, then put a shot in his snout, which made him crazy, then one behind his ear. I let a bunch of other hogs run around, the run away. My buddy was not real happy with me as he wanted holes in hogs, and did not care where the holes were. I came to understand the mission was to give them lead poisoning, yea, be ethical, but not like a deer hunt. After that I busted a bunch more when they gather, usually getting a hole in 3 or 4. They are vermin and need killing! The smaller ones, around 150 lbs or so are good eating.

But do let me know where you get those lights, I'm assuming they glow, so I can make that set-up in Oklahoma.

Nanook---go to the Texasboars web site and follow the prompts to the feeder lights. I use a three gang LED setup-- set 32 yards from the feeder. It illums about a 50 ft shooting circle--I use the red ones--(I am throughly convinced that they do not see the red light). They are set up with a deep cycle 105 battery with a solar panel charger. The lights have an intergal photocell that comes on at dusk and off at dawn. When I build my new light setup--I will make it portable by using a small feeder 12V battery and a 110 plug in charger and then put in place each time I hunt. Much less expense than the solar panel and deep cycle. Also allows me to move to other feeders where there may be more activity. without the expense of a major light setup. The little feeder batteries are 4 or 5 lbs and the lights are a lb,so highly portable. Also I built the stand 32 yds from the feeder for handgun distance and next time I will keep the stand a mim of 60 or 70 yds because of sound and smell--that hog nose and ears are very sensitive and the slightest sound will spook them after they have had any hunting pressure at all.If they have not had any hunting pressure you will think they are really dumb---hunt them a little bit and they will go totally nocturnal and be extremely wary. I noted in a previous post that # 38 had been shot--we could have taken 2 to 3 times that many under the lights, but basically only wanted big boars. We found most of the time the big boars will only come in when there are hot sows--so we would wait and wait for the big guys not knowing if a sow there was hot or not. They would eat all the corn (I have had up to 60 under the feeder a few times) and be gone-- so time to go home. The night lights are a great way to hunt them and shooting with low light at night is not exactly cheating--head shoots are absolutely neccessary unless you want to look for a wounded boar with a flashlight on your knees in a thicket at night.!!!!
Hope I have helped with some info--we need to kill all them we can --the F & G biologists claim you must kill 80% of the population each year to neutalize the hog population.

quote:

I understand that there have been hogs on the Brazos for as long as anybody can remember, so Eurasion lineage is most likely.

I grew up in Newcastle, and the only hogs I remember on the Brazos during the 60's and early 70's were along the Clearfork of the Brazos over around Crystal Falls, out between Breckenridge and Woodson.

After a lot of the old family places started selling off and breaking up and the agricultural practices started changing, then was when the hogs got their chance to expand.

Wallyfish . . . does he sell the solar chargers and battery? Or would a solar rig like I use on my corn feeders work okay? Thanks for that great link. I've made most of my shots clean, but did crawl into some brush after a good hit following a lot of blood - I chicken out and left it for the buzzards, before he did the same to me.

Nanook,
He sells the solar panels but the battery is a regular 105 amp deep cycle. I don't know the
ratings of the smaller panels on the feeders vs. the LED usage all night. When I bought it, Kevin (Tx Boars) said the 105 would last 2 or three weeks with little or no sun.

Crazyhorse,
I have also heard or read that the reversion to base genetics occurs very quick in the hogs
that could be why they are very Eurasian in stature.
Or, there are some comercial hunting operations around that could have brought in the Eurasian
bloodlines and it has started to dominate.

I grew up on a small farm in N. Mo and raised
Hampshire/Chesterwhite crosses and spent 3 years in Vo-Ag receiving awards for swine production.Pont here, is that it is amazing how the configuration of swine can be changed so quickly by selective breeding for different traits.40 to 50 years of escaped hogs relates to about a hundred generations of change. That is about 2000 years of human generational change.
Considering hogs natural intelligence ( I believe 5th or 6th most intelligent animal),
it is certainly understandable how adaptive they have become.
I realize they are good to eat and fun to hunt
but, they are detrimental to the enviorment and
all other game would be better off without them.

quote:

Originally posted by Crazyhorseconsulting:
With the exception of the animals that have been derived from the Vietnamese Pot Belly pigs, all domestic pigs are descendants of the European/Russian wild pig.

I think the issue with the "tooth" is along the same lines as "Mustangs/Wild Horses' have one less rib than domestic horses.

Some animals may have it some may not.

The things I have used to judge the amount of European/Russian influence on any given animal are:

With piglets, if they are red/reddish brown and have the lighter colored body stripes.

With larger animals, the overall shape.
The ones with the longer head, high front shoulders, sloping back, smaller hindquarters and longer hair are more closely devolved back to the original wild ancestor than the black ones with straight ears/back/tails.

I am sure everyone can come up with their own qualifyers, but I believe if a situation could be set up, where no outside animals of unknown ancestery could get in or be brought in, with in "X" number of generations, the animals would look just like pure European/Russian wild pigs. JMO.

If you ever get out here again there is hog hunting at Big Horn Canyon Ranch outside of Redlands,CA ph 909-789-4690

That ranch is actually in Riverside, if I can recall.......I know someone who has hunted there and he said it was a decent hunt......

quote:

Or, there are some comercial hunting operations around that could have brought in the Eurasian
bloodlines and it has started to dominate.

Over the years I believe there were several intentional and unintentional additions to the feral stock around the state of pure blood Russian/European wild pigs.

During the past 5 o 10 years or so, when feral/european whatever anyone wants to call them, really started becoming a biological disaster, and the dangers of both Brucellosis and Psedo-Rabies became known to more people, the practice of moving feral hogs et al around at will became a Hot Button issue in Texas.

I wish there was some way the animals could be managed because they add an element of excitement and provide some really great eating, but from what I heard from a TP&W biologist a couple of years back, something in the neighborhood of 60% of the population would have to be killed every year to keep them in check. JMO.

Mustangs and Russians (Europeans) are the same...Most are neither fish nor fowl, some are crosses, and some are just pigs turned loose or escaped and gone wild or horses turned loose and gone wild..In early America many ranches descreetly turned loose some pretty good studs in their mustang herds, but the mustang gene was strong and the studs of that era were less than what one will see today...

The gene pool with hogs and wild horses is shot to hell, and inbred for the most part.