I've got a question

[FTTPOW]

We've got some hogs that have been on the loose since fall and now there are 8 shoats and 4 adults tearing up the newly planted corn and soybean field in the area. The local farmers are justifiably interested in getting them wiped out.

My question is this: Can they be called in with the distress squeals of a young hog? I'm planning on recording a young pig squealing and then playing that on a game caller in hopes of getting them to respond out in the open. Does this have a chance of working or will I just send them off in a different direction?

This isn't intended to be a sporting hunt, just a depredation removal. It's either that or baiting them in. Attempts have been made to drive them into the open, but I can only imagine how unsuccessful that was. They hang out in a 80 acre woods with a swamp and lots of cover this time of year. Plus they've been seen in several areas in the neighborhood. On farmer has already replanted several acres of corn and they want them dead, dead, dead.

Time is a factor due to the fact that crops are growing and giving them more cover as we speak. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Would mornings or evening be best for calling?

 

[Rancho Loco]

Forget calling...Bait 'em and trap 'em.

 

[BirdDawg]

I have freinds that have grunt calls and such.....don't think they've ever done any good with them......I'd go with rancho........bait them and trap them.........if it's legal in your state........must be too close to houses to shoot or the farmers would have shot them already is my guess.......you might be able to get deprivation tags and wipe them out at night....check with your local DFG.....

 

[Nic Barca]

Howzit FTTPOW,

I am a student in Hawaii and have taken a class in Forest Pest Management, part of which covered eradication of feral pigs.

Are these wild hogsthat moved into the area? Or are you certain they are excaped pigs from captivity?

Baiting work great. Calls have never been reliable when it comes to calling hogs. The grunt calls are even less reliable than the squeels and more closly resemble the distress grunt than anything else. That's why when you use a hog grunt tube, the pig goes running, ha ha. My advice is to forget calls. If there are sows, then the pigs are going to keep on coming and this is just the beginning. Eradication of this herd is easily possible if the right effort is put into it. If they are reproducing, then the sooner they are eradicated the better because it will become mor and more expensive and difficult as the population expands.

It is important when you are eradicating an animal that you remove animals quickly and eliminate the very last animals. Feral pigs are said to be able to replace 70 percent of their population anually. So say there was 10 pigs and you kill seven, there will still be ten pigs a year later! Kill less and there will be more in a year. The most reliable and cheap method for catching the very last pigs in an area are snares. I don't know if that is legal where you are. A cable loop snare (which tightens one-way when an animal walks through the loop and pulls) is what is used to eradicate pigs here in Hawaii. Set a line of them in the area where the last pigs are and check them every other day (or leave them if nobody cares). The snares will eventually catch the last of them so long as the pigs don't move away from them, so MONITOR your site.

You can hunt them too but this is not a good bet for comlete eradication. Once only a couple are left, hunters just won't have fun going after them and will go elsewhere, unless the particular hunter is hell-bend on killing the last pig.

Some more recomendations on getting them:
-Run the area with dogs. A pit bull mix trained in grabbing pigs can catch the pigs but if a boar with tusks is present, it get's more dangerous for the dogs. We use packs of bull/hound or bull/bird dog crossed. Any bull mix will work, just depends on the dog. Your pigs might even be able to be bayed with cattle dogs or bay dogs. Just depends on whether they know to run from the dogs or not. I'm thinking they would not.
-Hunt the area at night. Pigs are mostly nocturnal. Walk around and listen. They usually make a good amount of noise. Spotlight them and shoot them.
-Shoot sows over boars. Shooting sows will slow reproduction. I don't care if it is the last boar, if you have a chance to shoot a sow next to it, shoot the sow cause she is likely pregnant.

Baiting and trapping is probably the best idea. Check texasboars.com for more info of traps. They cost a little to make but that cost is far less than the crop damage that farmers will endure if nothing is done. Trapping will not guarentee every hog, so I would follow up any effort to kill pigs with snaring the hell out of the area where the last pig is. The cheepest thing for the farmers to do would be to simply buy 50 to 100 snares and snare the heck out of the place but that has a lot of issues with animal cruelty, waste of meat, non-target animals, legal methods, etc.

I would learn everything you can on pig habits. They likely have a bedding area in the thick stuff close to a wallow and water, where they probably wallow twice a day and walk along a certain tree rubbing path right after. They will be out at all times except the middle of the day. Find what they are eating and look for them there either early or late in the day and at night.

 

[FTTPOW]

Thanks for the info. No one knows where the pigs came from or how long they've been here for sure. Probably got loose from someone. First seen last fall and thought maybe they'd not make it through the winter. Now that that proves wrong they need dealt with. Instead of 4, now there's 12 or so. The crops are planted and starting to grow, soon to provide too much cover for effective hunting. This is eradication, not hunting for sport. I ran into the game warden and he seems to think this is just another game to manage, hunting license, permission slips, blah, blah, blah. He even wants to be notified when one is killed so that they can waiste money on making sure they don't carry any disease. I'm ready to take the gloves off and do whatever it takes to get the job done.

No one around here has any hog hunting experience. That's why I came to the definitive source. If anybody has the answers, I count on Jesse's for the scoop.

I doubt if anyone in the state has dogs that can run hogs. Baiting is a wait-and-see that may not get enough support. Snares would catch too many deer and give the game warden a heart attack (something to think about). It may take a group of true hunters to tackle this before it gets out of control further.

How well do they use the wind? I'm guessing they're like deer to some extent. They seem to have a range of about a 1 mile radius. Might know it's where they have several swamps and numerous woods, although fairly small, to roam. The rest is farmland.

All we can do is try.

 

[Nic Barca]

Pigs have somewhat a better nose than deer but are lower to the ground so they might smell things on the ground better such as footprints. Their eyesight is poor compared to deer and their low profile doesn't help them in that area. Their sence of hearing is pretty good but they usually do not utilize their senses to the fullest unless the hunting pressure is on.

I have heard before that wild pigs have been expanding their range in North America ever since they were introduced in the 1500s. I looked it up and the swanne river ranch site had this to say:
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div>

The largest US populations of wild boar are in Florida, Texas, California and Hawaii. They can be found in half of the US states, and their range is spreading to include the more northern states of Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky and Ohio.[/b]

Therefore what you might be seeing could be the front, in which case there is one thing that can be done to stop it, but I won't get into that now. If that is the case, then it's a shame because the farmers will simply have another pest to deel with. At the same time, I'm sure all the hunters will be very happy with a new yearround game mammal. Here in Hawaii, some farmers erect pig proof fence around their fields. You need to burry it a foot deep or else they might squeeze under. I could be wrong; perhaps the population will always stay low for whatever reason and after those pigs are killed you will not see any more for years.

I still think you should seriously consider trapping with a large walk in pen. I'm no expert on the pigs of that area but if food is hard to come by during the winter, then you might be able to bait them into the pen daily and then one day, set it and catch the whole herd at once. Check texasboars.com if you haven't already.

Dog training is easy. Find a dog with part pitbull (pound, friend, etc). Get a small pig in a pen and chase the pig around. Make it squeel. Most bulls will go for it and lock on. Praise them when they do. Other dogs might chase it, bark at it, bay it, etc. Then take the dog out into the woods. A lot of types of dogs will work, even little terriers. You can simply use the dog to wind the pig, and then you know what area it's in. There are many ways to use dogs in pig hunting and a surprizing amount of dogs show interest. I've seen even toy dogs show a high level of interest.

 

[BDB]

Maybe the farmers should start a little pig erradication fund. Then you could fly out 4 or 5 of us JHO'ers to help solve your problem

Seriously though, good luck with the pigs. If they take a solid foothold they can do some bad a$$ damage.

 

[FTTPOW]

BDB, I would think that fellow JHOers would jump at the chance to help, by footing their own way!!

I'm going to look things over again tonight and try to come up with a plan, maybe for this weekend. After some time going solo, I might enlist a select group and make a coordinated assault. The local game warden is trying to nose in, but he's clueless and doesn't have good repore with anyone. I may talk to the county Sherriff's office and let them in on our plan, when we get one, and let them deal with the GW.

Let's Roll!

Seriously, we need to take a cautious approach and not mess things up on the first try, we may not get a better chance than the first one.

 

[Speckmisser]

Fttpow...

If you really wanna get rid of them, trap 'em. Seems like Texas is hog-trapping central, and if you'll check out some of the sites from down there you'll probably learn more than you ever wanted to know.

Trap the heck out of them, then bait and look for sign of any sneaky ones. Kill 'em on sight and forget about sportsmanship.

Either that... or manage for a huntable population and start a hunting club.

 

[MJB]

Nic,
That's some great info sounds like you LITERALLY have done your home work for that class. One question though, is there much of a difference if the pigs were of wild breed rather than domestic?

MJB

 

[Nic Barca]

Somebody else could probably answer your question a lot better than me. I used to know more about the mainland pigs but I seem to have forgotten and would need to research it again. They are definately mixes. I would say they are a mix between domestic breeds and eurasion wild species or subspecies. I have read of historical accounts of Eurasion wild boar being released and even excaping from game farms. They even used to farm free range pigs which would be rounded up and sold, but I don't know what kinds they were. As for looks, the feral pigs of taday come in many sizes, colors, shapes. Even siblings from a single litter can look and develope looking totally different. I would imaging the ones where you are at could have reverted back to more eurasion traits due to selection from cold weather.

 

[upper]

Ok, heres what you do bait an area slightly away from the area from the, soy soy,take some horse panels and line them 2by2 no climb fencing.Make as big a pen as you can afford,8,16 foot pannels being suffint.Now your first catch is going to be your best,so bait the pen so the hogs come in deep. I it is hard to wait a week but you must. They will come in like clockwork,after 1 week set the gate with the trip at the back of the trap and you have done it. The week will give you time to get homes "freezers" for the pigs. Even if you need time to build the trap,start baiting NOW.Easy deal hardest thing is building the door.But when you I will guarnteeee you will catch hogs.Dispatching can be done at your conv.22 btwn eyes and ears.Like I say easy deal.

Upper

 

[Nic Barca]

Oops, sorry MJB. I read your question wrong. I'm not really the best person to answer that question but I'll give it a shot.

There could be a big difference. For example, if they were domestic pigs who were made friendly towards people, then they wouldn't be too bright and might not have any fear of people. Might even walk right up to you expecting food. Wild pigs on the other hand are just that: WILD. When wild/feral pigs are young, you can catch them and tame them quite easily to where they are like a pet. But there comes a point (at around 8 to 15 pounds) when they will likely not ever come real tame after capture. Maybe domestic pigs might be similar color patters too, I don't really know.

Also do not shoot the pig while inside the pen. Other pigs will know and won't come in.

 

[upper]

The blood is no problem,in your case you should catch them all.If you dont catch all the "Family" the ones on the outside have now become a little smarter.You can still catch them,But this is where it gets tough.I snuck up on a trap one time and had 8 hogs inside and two on the outside.They were nose to nose on the fence making the strangest little noises,I didnt know what to think of it,till I got home and shared my expieriece with my family.My boys hit the nail on the headit was "PIG LATIN" who would of thought?Upper

 

[FTTPOW]

I had about 20 quality hunters lined up for this weekend. I had to postpone it. We got anywhere between 2 and 2-3/4" of rain overnight and don't want to take a chance on doing more damage to the planted fields.
Time is becoming an opponent now. The corn probably will slow down it's growth until the water soaks in and it warms up again. That may give us a little more time. It's just tall enough now that you can lay down between the rows and just raise your head up for a look around. It's still short enough to keep from hiding the hogs.
The Game Warden is backing off, now. All he wants is a vial of blood to examine. He's leaving the rest up to the locals in the area.
I'll still spend some time in the evenings keeping an eye on things and maybe get a crack at them. Otherwise we'll join forces and make our assault in a few days.

 

[Surfswest]

Sounds like you got a great plan laid down. Good luck on the execution of it and if you got any pictures, we would love to see the piggies!

Frosty

 

[upper]

The first ambush is usually the best,Be patient wait for your troops,have a safe plan,Watch the crossfire.

Good luck, Upper

 

[Nic Barca]

Just a couple thoughts:

If the corn is high enough to block them from seeing you, you might be able to walk right up on them pretty easily when they are out in the fields.

Also, with heavy rain softening up the ground, they should be digging more than usual and might also be more active in day light hours.