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It seems that as generations progress, the feral hogs are developing longer snouts, smaller ears, and larger front quarters. Probably natural selection at work, with regression to earlier, wilder forms. Any thoughts? Steve "He wins the most, who honour saves. Success is not the test." Ryan "Those who vote decide nothing. Those who count the vote decide everything." Stalin Tanzania 06 Argentina08 Argentina Australia06 Argentina 07 Namibia Arnhemland10 Belize2011 Moz04 Moz 09 | ||
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i agree. alot of them are looking like real wild pigs | |||
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I believe that is a valid hypothesis from what I have experienced. While there are sounders with multi colored piglets, I have seen many piglets that were either reddish with lengthwise white striping or a greyish with similar stripes. I also see quite a few that are taller at the front shoulders with the back sloping toward the hams. I think that the farther removed from the parent stock, generation wise, the more they will revert to the physical appearance of the original wild animals. Even the rocks don't last forever. | |||
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It's amazing how quickly feral hog features can revert. Since sows can have two litters per year the generational change due to natural selection occurs rather quickly. I heard many people attribute the "wild" appearance of ferals to interbreeding with released European boar, but the "wild" appearance (longer snouts, dark color, hairier, straight tails, stripped young, etc.) show up in populations where European boars have never been introduced. You will also see plenty of spotted or otherwise "domestic-looking" hogs mixed in with the "wild" ones. The domestic genes don't all go away at once, so the population will continue to have both appearances cropping up for decades. | |||
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That sums up the situation probably as good as it can be done.  Even the rocks don't last forever. | |||
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Most people have only seen what I call the " Chinese fat" hogs. Before them were the "red meat" hogs. There are some people beginning to bring the "red meat" hogs back. "Red meat" hogs are usually free ranged not raised in the pork factories! A lot of what people call Russia are just a breed of the "red meat" pigs. If you and a neighbor free ranged pigs like they did turkeys you had a distinctive breed. When it was time to get em to market yall rounded em up and separated the breeds and sold. I knew a guide who would pay a little extra for heritage or homestead free range pigs when he could not get trapped feral pigs. A hunter would delight at a mule footed or a red wattle pig! | |||
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Where did the "Razor Back Hogs" enter the picture? From back before the Civil War lots of folks in what was considered the South, just allowed their hogs to roam the country side and only rounded them up a couple of times yearly. Even the rocks don't last forever. | |||
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Here's one that was a little more "wild" looking than any of the other hundreds I've seen. This was on a S. Tx place in La Salle County.  An old pilot, not a bold pilot, aka "the pig murdering fool" | |||
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Wow, Hard to argue that one has pretty pure "original" genetics... I wonder if there are any studies into the reversion of genetics back to the "wild form"? Which is really probably the 99th+ percentile of their makeup anyway | |||
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That rascal is almost handsome. There is hope, even when your brain tells you there isn’t. – John Green, author | |||
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We called them "Piney Woods Rooters" in SE Texas. I can still remember shooting hogs with 'wattles". We felt they went back to the Spanish stock. They looked like a perch fish...very narrow cross section, high in the shoulders, low in haunches. The sows had super big "canine type teeth" and would bite the crap out of you! I love the red meat too...I also call them "the big wooly hogs". I could hunt them everyday of my life and be one happy boy!  | |||
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I personally don't believe there is much truth to the idea. I have yet to see a truly feral pig that had zero Euro-swine DNA introduced DNA in him (vice 5000 years of domestication) look like the pig that dustoffer posted. Think about the feral pigs in Australia, and the Pacific Islands. They all look like the majority of feral pigs in Florida that do not have European ancestry. Randolph Herst/Hurst introduced pure European wild boar to California. Captain Cook or the Spanish also released pigs to the California coast. As a result we have both feral type pigs similar to the ones in the Pacific Islands and some really nice looking European ones. We also have some that are a result of more recent introductions/escapes that are similar looking to the domestic breeds of Berkshire, Hampshire, Duroc, and Spot. I do not agree that if you released 100 head of domestic hogs on an Island that you would have a European looking wild boar within 100 years. The example on the South Island of New Zealand where many of the wild boars are a blue/silver color and do not have European conformation should prove my theory. But this is AR, where common sense is an uncommon virtue. | |||
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 These pigs look like they are pure Tamworths from the UK vice the blue hair. | |||
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 Local European wild boar, notice the shape of the ear and face is totally different. | |||
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 This gal has a hell of a pure brood, and look how different she is from even the pig in Texas. | |||
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seth: Where was/is this last one?? Iv'e never seen one that looked like her. Bunch of pups, could have been a dozen, but, 7 is a good batch. Great pictures, thanks for sharing. in Germany there was a lot of hogs, i never saw any, only tracks and damage. One of the guy was on a road grader w/o a top. Big bore tried to get up on the deck with Jim. He was spooked! George "Gun Control is NOT about Guns' "It's about Control!!" Join the NRA today!" LM: NRA, DAV, George L. Dwight | |||
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Well to each their own belief, but I do know from First Hand-Daily Experience I am seeing more and more sows with litters that are colored up exactly like those in the picture above. The sows look nothing like that one but the piglets are identical and there are also litters where the piglets are striped just like those in the picture, except instead of the baqckground color being the reddish brown it is grey. Even the rocks don't last forever. | |||
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I doubt our Texas/deep south pigs would ever develop hair like the European boars because our winters are so mild. Their main concern is staying cool during our hot summers, hence they spend a lot of the summer in wallows. "For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind..." Hosea 8:7 | |||
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We called him "corn-o-matic" as he was automatic whenever a corn feeder would spin. Watched him one afternoon when he got there early---laid down in the sendero and took a nap until the "alarm" woke him up. An old pilot, not a bold pilot, aka "the pig murdering fool" | |||
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Back in 2011, an acquaintance trapped some piglets along the Arkansas River. I got them from him to raise because they looked like pure blood Eurasian wild boars. They grew remarkably fast, and weighed 100 pounds within 4 months. I traded them to some rural "ne'r-do-wells" to clean up some downed timber from a tornado. One of the fellows kept them for several more generations, and they were identical to Russian boars as adults.     The black one was clearly from a different sow.   Steve "He wins the most, who honour saves. Success is not the test." Ryan "Those who vote decide nothing. Those who count the vote decide everything." Stalin Tanzania 06 Argentina08 Argentina Australia06 Argentina 07 Namibia Arnhemland10 Belize2011 Moz04 Moz 09 | |||
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Bww's post makes sense. How then account for changes y'all seem to be observing on the ground? Only thing I can think is that boars that already possess a higher proportion of "wild" genes are being more successful at breeding the sows than boars with "farm" genes -- and that sows with more wild DNA are bearing more piglets. There is hope, even when your brain tells you there isn’t. – John Green, author | |||
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It is one of those things that there is no easy answer to. To start with, with a few exceptions wild hogs in America are related to/decended from or developed from European Boar stock. They were the base stock for most varieties of domestic pigs in existance today. Vietnamese Pot Belly pigs are an exception and there are a few others that developed in specific localities such as the Asian subcontinent. The founder stock for many modern domestic breeds can be traced back to the European Wild Boar, similar to domestic sheep having been developed from Mouflons, cattle breeds being developed from Aurochs, chickens from Jungle Fowl and dogs from wolves. With feral hogs here in America it has to be taken into consideration that over the decades, whether accidental or intentional there have been infusions of pure European Wild Boar genetics added to the mix. Thrown in the belief by some folks that next to House Cats, pigs are the least domesticated of the animals humans have domesticated which makes it easier for them to revert to the feral/wild state. Being an aggressive/opportunistic and highly adaptable and prolific species, not unlike house cats, they found a niche here in America not occupied by another species, they are able to expand and over populate. The only really effective predatorv of pigs here in America have are humans and sometimes it does not seem we are that effective. Even the rocks don't last forever. | |||
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This is a very interesting thread. I remember reading some scientific paper a long time ago that said it only takes four generations for domestic pigs to revert to "feral" pigs. True or not, I imagine there is no hard and fast rule in places like Texas because many pigs with so many origins and so many degrees of "wildness" are continually interbreeding. This is from the Texas A&M website:
Morphology is sometimes used to differentiate between domestic and feral/wild. Michigan DNR uses "phenotype" to identify Sus scrofa and distinguish it from other species.
I wonder how valid that is. I think the logic is flawed. Using that method you could say that German Shorthairs are domestic and German Shepherds are feral. And it seems to be causing a bit of trouble for some pig farmers: . | |||
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Good seeing you posting on here. Even the rocks don't last forever. | |||
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I forgot to add that a second factor that may be selecting for more Eurasian boar characteristics in the feral population is that hogs with more of the "wilder" genes may be smarter about avoiding Bobby Tomek and Geedubya than their more domesticated brethren.  There is hope, even when your brain tells you there isn’t. – John Green, author | |||
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Genotype and phenotype are two different things. Just because the genes code for a trait, doesn't necessarily mean that trait is expressed. Lot more going on than simple Mendelian genetics. Auburn University BS '09, DVM '17 | |||
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I sent a link to this thread to my daughter, who works at the National Animal Disease Center in Ames, Iowa. She got her Ph.D. in genetics at Iowa State last summer and most of her work was with swine. Here is her take: "Genetics don't 'revert' back to more wild -- gene pools are more dynamic. Genetics only move forward. The thing that changes is the allele frequencies within a breeding population. They may look more "feral" but things like the coat color and the stripes are just part of cross breeding -- I have large white x Duroc crosses on our modern pig farm that have striped piglets. And we now recognize "Spot" as a breed class because it's common for spots and different colors to appear with any breed crosses in swine. The other attributes -- long noses and sloping backs -- are likely a result that there is no selection going on for conformation in the wild. Pig gestation is only 114 days, so much easier to make genetic changes quickly for sure. I imagine exposure to different populations (domestic and otherwise) and predation are the main driving forces." There is hope, even when your brain tells you there isn’t. – John Green, author | |||
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Natural selection can work quickly on rapid breeders. Something like white hair can easily work against piglets as a visible attractant to predators. Long snouts that are better at rooting than short ones would also be a survival benefit to young and old pigs, alike. A more athletic build to run faster and fight better is an obvious benefit to each succeeding generation that receives those genes. The traits that were selected by mankind over thousands of years to make the wild hog into a domestic hog can be de-selected by Nature much more rapidly. Steve "He wins the most, who honour saves. Success is not the test." Ryan "Those who vote decide nothing. Those who count the vote decide everything." Stalin Tanzania 06 Argentina08 Argentina Australia06 Argentina 07 Namibia Arnhemland10 Belize2011 Moz04 Moz 09 | |||
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I think that describes the process better than anything. One thing that I have noticed that opthers may not have or do not take into consideration, and I am just explaining what I see in this area, but coyotes and bobcats both really seem to be not all that "Hot" on tangling with a "Sounder" that is comprised of 2 or more adult sows with a dozen or so 20 to 40 pound piglets in tow. Bobcats are normally solitary hunters from my experience and will pick off smaller piglets given a chance, and coyotes aren't much different. Trying to grab a 10 to 30 pound piglet out of a sounder of 15 to 30 animals or more, with adult sows and maybe a breeder boar or two following the group ain't real profitable. Even the rocks don't last forever. | |||
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Want to decimate feral hog numbers? Just reverse forty years of cleaning up the nation's rivers and streams. I grew up on the banks of the upper Clear Fork of the Brazos (being from Olney you'll know where that is, Crazyhorse). As a kid I always wondered who would name this oozing brown sludge of a stream the "Clear Fork"? Today, after all of the small towns upstream spending millions of dollars on compliant sewage treatment facilities, the water is amazingly clear and clean. And we have wild hogs where we never had them before. Swine are subject to many of the diseases that humans carry, particularly intestinal diseases. They don't call it "hog colera" for no reason. When towns were dumping their largely untreated sewage into the nearest stream, hogs would drink and die (unlike cattle, which, being ruminants, are mostly unaffected by human gastro-bugs.) Think about the timeline of the implementation of environmental water regulations and superimpose on it the explosion in feral hog populations and I think you'll see a compelling indicator of a cause-effect relationship. | |||
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Yes Sir I am quite familiar with the Clear Fork and it had to have been named a long time ago. I grew up in Newcastle and I have always felt the Brazos River is my Home Base. Even the rocks don't last forever. | |||
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yes dr ,after a few generations hogs reverse to russian boars ,we saw it here where populations is exploding ,of course the DOGOS are very happy and we still control it . www.huntinginargentina.com.ar FULL PROFESSIONAL MEMBER OF IPHA INTERNATIONAL PROFESSIONAL HUNTERS ASOCIATION . DSC PROFESSIONAL MEMBER DRSS--SCI NRA IDPA IPSC-FAT -argentine shooting federation cred number2- | |||
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I agree with the O.P. up to a point. Unless they were recent escapees from purebred stock, they're probably mutts that are a combination of subspecies and possibly farm stock domestics which also have varieties like the so-called best pork in the world. Here's a plethora of information and most subspecies have pictures for comparison. Features are distinct for most ss such as wool-like thick hair all over, long head hair, skinny legs, short snout, pointy ear tip hairs, grey faces, etc. I hope this non-profit site is OK with the moderators here. Lots of info here on hog sub-species around the world. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_boar Life itself is a gift. Live it up if you can. | |||
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Steve "He wins the most, who honour saves. Success is not the test." Ryan "Those who vote decide nothing. Those who count the vote decide everything." Stalin Tanzania 06 Argentina08 Argentina Australia06 Argentina 07 Namibia Arnhemland10 Belize2011 Moz04 Moz 09 | |||
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Stonecreek---appears the scientist/veterinarian doctor of wildlife disease might disagree with your thoughts about a connection between clean water and hog numbers: No relationship between human cholera (bacterial) & hog cholera (virus). Hog cholera eradicated from US ~ 40 yrs ago. The whole premise involving hogs, ruminants, etc. is ridiculous! An old pilot, not a bold pilot, aka "the pig murdering fool" | |||
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domestic on the left morphed feral on the right  Mike Legistine actu quod scripsi? Never under estimate the internet community's ability to reply to your post with their personal rant about their tangentially related, single occurrence issue.  What I have learned on AR, since 2001: 1. The proper answer to: Where is the best place in town to get a steak dinner? is…You should go to Mel's Diner and get the fried chicken. 2. Big game animals can tell the difference between .015 of an inch in diameter, 15 grains of bullet weight, and 150 fps. 3. There is a difference in the performance of two identical projectiles launched at the same velocity if they came from different cartridges. 4. While a double rifle is the perfect DGR, every 375HH bolt gun needs to be modified to carry at least 5 down. 5. While a floor plate and detachable box magazine both use a mechanical latch, only the floor plate latch is reliable. Disregard the fact that every modern military rifle uses a detachable box magazine. 6. The Remington 700 is unreliable regardless of the fact it is the basis of the USMC M40 sniper rifle for 40+ years with no changes to the receiver or extractor and is the choice of more military and law enforcement sniper units than any other rifle. 7. PF actions are not suitable for a DGR and it is irrelevant that the M1, M14, M16, & AK47 which were designed for hunting men that can shoot back are all PF actions. 8. 95 deg F in Africa is different than 95 deg F in TX or CA and that is why you must worry about ammunition temperature in Africa (even though most safaris take place in winter) but not in TX or in CA. 9. The size of a ding in a gun's finish doesn't matter, what matters is whether it’s a safe ding or not. 10. 1 in a row is a trend, 2 in a row is statistically significant, and 3 in a row is an irrefutable fact. 11. Never buy a WSM or RCM cartridge for a safari rifle or your go to rifle in the USA because if they lose your ammo you can't find replacement ammo but don't worry 280 Rem, 338-06, 35 Whelen, and all Weatherby cartridges abound in Africa and back country stores. 12. A well hit animal can run 75 yds. in the open and suddenly drop with no initial blood trail, but the one I shot from 200 yds. away that ran 10 yds. and disappeared into a thicket and was not found was lost because the bullet penciled thru. I am 100% certain of this even though I have no physical evidence. 13. A 300 Win Mag is a 500 yard elk cartridge but a 308 Win is not a 300 yard elk cartridge even though the same bullet is travelling at the same velocity at those respective distances. | |||
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I used the term "hog cholera" as a common euphemism for intestinal diseases. Actual "Hog Cholera" (swine fever) was declared eliminated in the U.S. in 1978, but is still endemic in Asia and other parts of the world. But if you'll bother to do a quick internet search you'll find that dozens of diseases can readily be communicated between hogs and humans (and vice versa, of course.) Here's just one, but a significant one, particularly as related to sewage: Salmonellosis Salmonellosis Salmonellosis is a bacterial infection of the intestines caused by a group of bacteria called Salmonella. The bacteria are shed in the stool of infected animals and humans. Infection can happen when a person eats food or drinks water or milk that has been contaminated with Salmonella bacteria. Infection with Salmonella can cause serious disease especially in children younger than 5 years of age and persons with weakened immune systems. The above comes from here: https://www.kingcounty.gov/dep...by-animal/pigs.aspx, but this is just one of dozens of sites listing dozens of diseases communicable between "us" and "them", with many such diseases communicated through fecal contamination, i.e., untreated sewage. If you really want to get into the science of pig/human diseases you might want to pay to access this full article https://www.cell.com/trends/mi...966-842X(11)00195-8, but here is a synopsis: An animal model to study human infectious diseases should accurately reproduce the various aspects of disease. Domestic pigs (Sus scrofa domesticus) are closely related to humans in terms of anatomy, genetics and physiology, and represent an excellent animal model to study various microbial infectious diseases. Indeed, experiments in pigs are much more likely to be predictive of therapeutic treatments in humans than experiments in rodents. In this review, we highlight the numerous advantages of the pig model for infectious disease research and vaccine development and document a few examples of human microbial infectious diseases for which the use of pigs as animal models has contributed to the acquisition of new knowledge to improve both animal and human health. I doubt you'll find any "scientist/veterinarian doctor" who will disagree that many potentially fatal diseases can be communicated to hogs from humans. Cows are mostly a different story. | |||
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This is quite interesting. Of course, I can only speak for my personal observations. I shoot a lot of hogs, probably 50-60 a year. All are in Florida. I have my own place which is about 700 acres. I am a member at a place which is over 27,000 acres and gets relatively little pressure. Personally, I never see hogs that look like they have some of the European boar traits in them like some show in some of the pictures posted herein. I do see some with vastly different skull shapes. We see some hogs with virtually no hair . Even in the middle of summer we see some hogs with long hair. It seems to me that we are seeing more and more colored hogs, meaning other than black. We see a wide variety of colors. Silver, red, brown , auburn as well as various multi-colored hogs. Perhaps the most interesting to me is that some of these colors tend to grow bigger teeth. Silver, red and auburn in particular. I do think, at least in my area,that there are some idiots who have turned loose some domestic stock as “breeders.” Why do I say this? I had hogs showing up on trails cams with numbered tags in their ears. I did some checking before I shot them because I didn’t want to go to jail. | |||
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I feel that has happened more than many folks want to admit to! Even the rocks don't last forever. | |||
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