Activity Feed › Discussion Forums › Strictly Surveying › Wild Hogs – sorry no pics
paden cash, post: 408604, member: 20 wrote: I’ve heard differing reports on the quality of meat from wild hogs. Some reports say the way to clean them is to throw them in a dumpster…meaning the meat isn’t worth messing with. I have heard stories from others of a good feast from low and slow hickory coals. I couldn’t say one way or the other. “Good” meat is probably a relative term compared to a level of hunger. Having seen wild hogs in all their glory, I don’t think I’d touch one unless I first ran it through the truck wash three or four times. They are some pretty nasty looking creatures.
We had one show up on our place a few years ago. Had a white German Shepherd that spotted it heading down a fence row. When I went to see what she was barking at, I could smell it from 200′ away. Smelled like a super stinking boar hog. Only live one I’ve ever seen here. Shot it and had to drag it off with the 4 wheeler, was like dragging off a sack of skunks.
We have had wild hogs in SW MS for as long as I can remember, and I’m past the half century mark. We run into them occasionally while working, but there has only been a few times that the situation got tense and that was because piglets were involved. I grew up raising hogs and you can’t put any trust in a domestic hog either. There is a valid back story to the phrase “He got lost in the woods and the hogs ate him”. The biggest problem we have with wild hogs is they will root up and remove our traverse points. If there is much hog sign in the area, we will bury our points deep and not put flagging on the nails.
A biologist with the MS Game & Fish told me the problem with wild hogs is that a sow will have 2 litters a year, and out of the 12 piglets in each litter, 14 will survive. They don’t have any natural predators in our area other than rednecks, with and without beer. They sure do make good sausage though.
Coyotes seem to come and go in my area. The problem with them is when they get close to your house, they will eat every house cat and domestic dog they can catch. It doesn’t matter how big the dog is. I have seen the remains of a 120 pound Rottweiler after getting to close to pack of coyotes. Not much left.
When I was about 8 years old, me and my older brother (10) were supposed to clean out the water trough for a sow that had a new litter. My brother being the oldest took charge and told me to clean the trough while he sat on the fence corner and watched the farrowing house for the sow coming out.
The old sow realized we were in her pen and came out after us. My brother jumped out and then realized I was still inside (he forgot his part of the job). He hollered, I jumped head first over the fence into a mud hole.
And he wonders why I don’t always trust him.
Jamespaden cash, post: 408604, member: 20 wrote: I’ve heard differing reports on the quality of meat from wild hogs. Some reports say the way to clean them is to throw them in a dumpster…meaning the meat isn’t worth messing with. I have heard stories from others of a good feast from low and slow hickory coals. I couldn’t say one way or the other. “Good” meat is probably a relative term compared to a level of hunger. Having seen wild hogs in all their glory, I don’t think I’d touch one unless I first ran it through the truck wash three or four times. They are some pretty nasty looking creatures.
Good to know.
I don’t think I’ve ever even seen a wild boar.
Meat is great so long as you know how to cook and the boar isn’t too big.
I heard a talk with a man who was for more humane raising of pigs. I think there is a documentary on this somewhere as well. He discussed one of the biggest pig farms around and how they weren’t allowed to roam and were crammed into a common pen with virtually no where to move. Even cleaning their poop was a problem the lived and wallowed in their own excrement. The only way they were able to clean it out was with a big machine that would suck it up and shoot it up into the air. The neighboring houses would rain pig-poop that would disperse it all over. Every home (and every person I assume) stunk of pig pooh. They fed the pigs the cheapest food which main goal was to make them fat. More poundage for the price per pound. The think made me think of how gross it was.
This guy was into humane pig farming and feeding them healthy food and letting them have a better quality of life (before slaughtering them I assume). But he said that the meat looked better and was much healthier for you than the high-volume pig-farm pig. I don’t know anything about it, but I just was think that wild boar would be a lot healthier. But I get it. They eat anything and are pretty dirty animals.
Sorry for the bit of a tangent, but thanks for the information on wild boar. It does seem like it would be worth hunting and thinning out the population and hopefully find some people who would appreciate the meat.
paden cash, post: 408604, member: 20 wrote: Having seen wild hogs in all their glory, I don’t think I’d touch one unless I first ran it through the truck wash three or four times. They are some pretty nasty looking creatures.
That must mean your a vegetarian because I have not seen a single bovine that looked appetizing on the hoof.
paden cash, post: 408625, member: 20 wrote: Wild hogs can climb trees, too. We ran this one up a walnut tree and it was pissed. I’ve never heard a hog make such a sound.
I guess it was a young one because it hadn’t had time to grow any tusks.
You’ve got your critters mixed up, that ain’t a wild hog, that’s the adjoiner that finds you trying to locate his corner.
Stephen Ward, post: 408636, member: 1206 wrote: You’ve got your critters mixed up, that ain’t a wild hog, that’s the adjoiner that finds you trying to locate his corner.
Is it mutually exclusive? Why can’t it be both?
I SOOOO wanna do this……..
[MEDIA=youtube]ubt19wLNcKM[/MEDIA]
Glad you made it out of there Safely.
I’ve had family members concerned about my safety when I worked without packing in wild hog areas.
They are very prevalent in swamps and marsh surrounding New Orleans. Besides huntress
Vietnamese go after them.
I have seen hog hunting dogs ripped up. Never had a fear until, I was in a remote area with a new helper. We came across a group of Wild hogs in the brush. Helper freaked and ran off. I observed the group and they were moving away. There was a fairly decent size slough and I was surprised of how adept and fast that they swam away. I made it out and found my helper taking refuge at the truck.
I was more fearful in these areas of local gangs that stole luxury cars, took them out to these remote areas to strip and then torch them.Had a neighbor and friend who worked for the Audubon Institute in New Orleans They were developing an endangered/threatened species center at English Turn outside of New Orleans.
He was assigned to be the onsite caretaker and eradicate the site of wild hogs before the facility opened. Trap and kill or whatever. He had many pig roast parties. Long and slow cookingShawn Billings, post: 408497, member: 6521 wrote: Monday I was working on a 130 acre tract in the boonies. It was my first day on the job and I took off to the back line expecting to see the fence and then figured to head East to the Southeast corner. I picked the one place where the old fence was down and there were no posts, so I completely missed it. I didn’t prepare any approximate search coordinates, so I was traipsing around half lost, until I was sure I’d gone too far. I turned around headed a slightly different way so that I might pick up the fence I knew I’d missed. I found a flagged line (which turned out to still be way too far South. There were signs of wild hogs everywhere, and it was very fresh. Sure enough, about a hundred yards away, I see a sow. Pretty big too. She’s making a lot of racket. I started whistling, then talking. She didn’t notice or didn’t care. I took a shot on a nail I found and figured as long as she stayed over there and I was over here and I could hear her, it didn’t matter.
After that, I was still pretty sure I was way in the wrong place, so I continued back North along a trail. I approached a pipeline clearing that crossed the trail perpendicularly. I could hear hogs about a hundred feet down the pipeline clearing. I could see through the trees that there was a large sow, a small boar and some piglets. I’ve seen Ol’ Yeller. I know how that goes. So not wanting to spook them, I made some noise. In the woolies, I try to always keep a sidearm handy. I made a loud hissing noise. They stopped and the piglets started moving around panicked. The sow and the boar looked my direction. I was still obscured by the trees. I didn’t step into the intersection of the clearings. The boar started running right toward me. I had that 357 in my hand in a hurry. Since I wasn’t on my subject property, I really, really didn’t want to start blasting unless I really, really had to.
He stopped in the trees looking my direction, then peeled off with the piglets and sow the other direction.
I bumped into the same herd (is it a herd of pigs?) that afternoon when I found the Southeast corner of my tract. They were further away, but the piglets were panicked again and they were running all through the bottom I was in. Sure made it hard to concentrate. I have seen pictures of what wild boars can do with those tusks, but I don’t know how real the danger is. I haven’t spent much time around wild hogs. I don’t know if most of those victims were doing something stupid to provoke it or if a hog will charge an unsuspecting person.
Back in the summer, I was locating a creek across a property I was subdividing. I kept hearing a popping noise that sounded like those Africans that click with their throats. I couldn’t quite place the noise as I’d never heard it before. I walked up on a dead hog in the creek (maybe a hundred pounds) so I knew they were in the area. I told a friend about it who hunts a lot and he told me it was a hog popping his jaws. That day I had forgotten to carry my sidearm. You can bet that I didn’t forget it the next time I was out there.
A group of Hogs are called a Sounder
The gestation period for hogs is easy to remember. Three months, three weeks and three days. Heard that from a little bit of everyone I ever knew in the hog business. Totals 114 days, so three litters per year is possible but not likely because mama hog don’t want anything to do with papa hog for some time after all those little ones come along. A big part of that is based on the fear that he will eat the little ones. Given the opportunity to do so, he will. Sometimes she is stupid enough to eat them, too. Hogs love meat. Toss a big old snake in their pen and watch the tug of war get started.
Hog teat information: On average, a pig has 12 to 14 complex glands (6 to 7 pairs), but the range is 6 to 32, depending on the breed. Glands are placed in two parallel rows, one on each side, to ensure that the piglets can reach them after birth.
A “boar” hog (i.e. a male w/all his parts) is not fit to eat IMO, though some do. You can do some work on the meat w/vinegar or milk, but they are usually nasty smelly creatures. A “bar” hog (i.e. a male w/out his parts), can grow quite large, and is some of the finest eating the woods provides down my way. The same can be said for the female, better known as a sow. I’ve been around them all my life, hunting and working, and never really had many issues except when we were hunting them w/dogs, which of course puts you at much more risk to attack/danger. Sure some are nasty, mostly the boar hogs, but sows generally aren’t anything more than dirty, and when you pull the hide off em’ there’s nothing but fresh pork, that only your hands have touched (and not processed). Pretty good eating, and lots of folks down here (mostly transplants, i.e. “snowbirds”) love to hunt them. To us locals, as kids, they are something fun to harass and chase, and as adults are more of pest.
hlbennettpls, post: 408651, member: 10049 wrote: A “bar” hog (i.e. a male w/out his parts),
Actually it is a Barrow hog but the way some people pronounce it, I can see where you would get “bar”
I know some that trap the younger boar hogs, castrate them and feed them out for a couple of months, then butcher them.
JamesOne of my best friends, a first cousin actually, works for the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency (TWRA). Lately, he’s been catching hogs. They’ve got a cage that stays open and sends video to his phone. When he gets several in the cage, he locks it down.
Tommy Young, post: 408685, member: 703 wrote: One of my best friends, a first cousin actually, works for the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency (TWRA). Lately, he’s been catching hogs. They’ve got a cage that stays open and sends video to his phone. When he gets several in the cage, he locks it down.
Seen videos of a trap like that. I’m guessing the only thing left to do after the trap is sprung is to fire off a few rounds. Although cleaning up the mess afterwards would be a chore. Extinguishing live animals is a distasteful part of natural environment management. But once one realizes the damage and risk these pests create, the answer is a no brainer. And their numbers are growing exponentially.
Shawn Billings, post: 408637, member: 6521 wrote: looks like he just needs some one to give him a hug.
g’head…;)
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