Here are a few game camera pictures from a couple of days ago, I've watched some of these pigs grow from piglets to now having piglets of their own in less than a year. We shoot all we see but seem to be losing ground. They are some destructive bastards.

with that many pigs coming in, i'd be tempted to line up a shot for 2 or 3....or maybe use my 10 ga with buckshot...good hunting to you!!

Hey, if you need any help. Let me know! It's 9 degrees out right now and some dry ground is looking pretty good.

the different colors are interesting. all of ours are jet black and truly look like Russian strain hogs- including the 400 pounder we caught as a baby and turned into a big pet… and his tusks are indeed impressive.

jdollar: The color variations are indeed interesting...we have sounders come to the feeders that have the classic black/gray coloration as well. We, too, have a "pet" feral pig and he is a monster, he must weigh 500 lbs. He showed up in one of our barns in July of 2005 and we couldn't resist bottle feeding him. We had him castrated as a small pig hoping to prevent tusk growth, but that didn't work; however it did calm him down quite a bit. He used to follow my wife around the pasture and she sure got some funny looks from people driving by but he doesn't get to do that anymore because he ran off into a cornfield across the road and couldn't find his way home...took me several hours to find and get him back home. I'll see if I can post a picture of old Moe the pig.

Karl

With that many pigs around, if you haven't done it already you might want to look at trapping them. I don't know if there is a buyer in your area, but if there is you can get rid of those suckers and make some money doing it.

Here are a few pics of Moe the Pig, the corral panels he is standing beside are 53" tall so you can get a bit of perspective as to his size. He wasn't in too good a mood this morning so I didn't get in the pen to take the photos...


Crazyhorse: I've thought several times about trapping them but I haven't found a buyer for live hogs in our area. In the meantime, we will shoot 'em when we see 'em.

Karl

Are you sure he is getting enough to eat?

Got this information from the following website:

http://www.tahc.state.tx.us/an...lth/feral_swine.html

Not sure how up to date the info is but this guy is listed for Ellis county.

Ellis, Jeff Johnson, 7446 FM 1181, Ennis, 75119
214 532 7723

If you aren't trapping the hogs around home, the website link provides a list of supposedly active buying stations/holding facilities in Texas.

I know these up in this area, Archer/Young/Baylor and Jack counties are only buying 80 pound and larger pigs.

Crazyhorse: thanks for the info, I will contact him and see if he is still buying.

Doubless: He eats very well, his favorite foods are animal crackers and Little Debbie oatmeal pies. I figured he would kill and eat our chickens but he tolerates them very well and will let them eat the left over feed out of his food bowl; the only time there was any conflict was when a hen got impatient and tried to take food from under his nose...didn't work out well for the chicken. He does not tolerate dogs at all (even the hound dogs that grew up around him), I think this is because when he was pretty young two of our neighbor's dogs (now deceased...the dogs not the neighbor) got into his pen and were chasing him. So, he lives out his life in relative pig-luxury with a ceiling fan and shower head on a timer to help him out during the summer months.


Karl

Karl:
You're spoilin that old hog!
How old is he?
Thanks for sharing,
George

Georgeld: he is 8 years old, he showed up in one of our barns as a very small striped piglet in July 2005. I have no idea what the life span of a feral pig might be, but he is doing really well.

Karl

If I had a ranch in TX & that many targets, I'd be using something belt-fed

Them is a lot of pigs ya got there Karl...Hope you can turn a few bucks by trapping/selling them off

How many acres? They must be damaging the place pretty bad brother?

Offer some cull hunts?

Yep--been there and shot a bunch, but couldn't keep up with their breeding habits--

As above, offer some cull hunts.

If they like Grain that much, Poison them ?

My son moved to Austin Texas earlier this year and has not been able to go hunting as of yet. He would be thrilled to shoot as many of those hogs as you permitted.

Are you allowed to use Dogs on hogs in Texas ?

Farmers here reckon a combination of shooters
- find a good one and stick with them as some
can just seek out and find hogs !!! -
and doggers to clean up the less easy one's
makes a good combination and really decreases numbers.

Last I heard they were paying up to $ .72 a pound for live feral hogs. Most of the buyers and brokers can't pay much to pick them up because they have to recoup their labor and transportation costs to get them to a site that will accept them. Last year there were 72 locations approved by Texas to accept feral hogs for slaughter; don't know about this year.

I don't think any amount of hunting pressure will dent your populaiton. As long as there's feed and water they'll adapt to the pressure to avoid the danger. Trapping is the best method but labor intensive to have any real effect. I don't know about poison. Evey landowner I know is concerned about collateral damage but maybe a lot of folks do it.

Tiggertate: The pasture these photos are from would be very hard to access with a trailer or I would try and set up a large trap and catch a bunch. I guess I could trap a bunch and shoot 'em. I've shot a couple of pigs in the last week or so, but I think you are right about them adapting. A neighbor right behind where I live put out poison for crop damaging pigs and killed quite a few, but he also killed several hawks and buzzards...the local game warden wasn't too amused. Dr. Scott on AR and I own another place about 2 miles from this place and he killed 4 pigs yesterday...plenty of them over there as well.

Karl

quote:

Originally posted by K Evans:
Here are a few pics of Moe the Pig, the corral panels he is standing beside are 53" tall so you can get a bit of perspective as to his size. He wasn't in too good a mood this morning so I didn't get in the pen to take the photos...


Crazyhorse: I've thought several times about trapping them but I haven't found a buyer for live hogs in our area. In the meantime, we will shoot 'em when we see 'em.

Karl

looks like a clone of our pet, Maximus( Max). we had him neutered at about 20 lbs thinking it would stop tusk growth - it didn't. luckily he is still dog tame and in fact, enjoys playing with our pack of small dogs. like you said, though, when he decides he doesn't want to go back in his pen, it takes a bit of a rodeo. he absolutely loves my wife and will follow her anywhere. me, he tolerates, especially if i have food.

I live outside Alvarado and have seen some hogs around my area. Notably around Maypearl. It seems the hog population goes up as you get a bit south of the Alvarado dump. If I were you and had the time I would "guide" hunters out to stands and let them pay for the honor of shooting them. Might cover corn and gas. There were for a while several operations like that nearby but all I could get at the time was $75. a day per hunter.

Palidun: One of my sons lives on the extreme east side of Maypearl and frequently sees hogs in a pasture behind his house and his wife struck one on the highway about a half mile out of Maypearl, did several thousand dollars damage to their car. Just too many pigs!

Karl

I have seen a bunch just west of "south Prong creek" or Cow creek. The creek that runs into Lake Waxahachie. If some hunting isn't done there soon the hogs will take over if they haven't all ready.

Castrating has nothing to do with tusk growth. Although your boars at that age seem to have very short tusk. I truly believe it boils down to genetics of the hogs.

Either way nice boars! We had a pet boar named Ikona he was a beast and a spoiled brat lol cut up my brothers really bad but they would mess with him when young. He slept with me till he was roughly 200+ lbs then he had to go outside lol. He loved flipping my dad off his recliner that was his favorite lol if it werent for me he woulda been dead very early in his life hahaha.