Feral hogs trap the building of my own (DIY).

[two_bit_score]

Handling feral hogs is more dangerous than many people realize.

 

[CADplans]

i'm sure the experienced & careful hunters that have posted here handle feral hogs safely w/gloves, & cook thoroughly etc. but there are amateurs that may put themselves at risk just through improper handling & cooking of a feral hog.
trichinosis, tapeworm, & swine brucellosis are also something i'd want to avoid.

A part of my family have always been big time hunters, and wild meat eaters,,
The same goes for some of my present neighbors.

Well, when ever there is an economic "swing", one of my favorite things to bring up is that we need to gather some venison.

If I mention this in the summer, ALWAYS,
those guys will tell me we can not hunt in the summer, as the meat is just too dangerous.

Also, I remember back in the 1960's. at the HEIGHT of the COLD WAR,
some company was pushing a process that was going to irradiate some foods,,

EVERYONE was so afraid of anything that was linked to the atomic bomb that the process was killed off before it started.

If I remember correctly, irradiated milk would be able to be stored without refrigeration
Irradiated pork would become safe to eat if cooked at lower temps,, there was nothing alive in the food.

I think a majority of irradiated food would not need refrigeration, if consumed within some reasonable time.

The process was simply to pass the food item through a chamber on a conveyer belt, at a pretty high speed.
The radiation would completely pass through the food, so, there was no possibility of contamination.

Think how many people may have not died because of food poisoning, if that irradiating process had been successful??

 

[two_bit_score]

That assumes the process was safe and worked as planned.

 

[EddieWalker]

For me and my wife, we enjoy wild hog meat from smaller hogs. Less then 100 pounds, and that's pushing it. Probably the only ones we bother with are closer to 60 pounds. The bigger ones are great for dog food. We cut the hams and backstraps into cubes and cook it in the crock pot with sweet potatoes, green beans and whatever else my wife thinks that they will enjoy. The dogs love it!!! For us, we grill the backstraps with some seasoning and it's fantastic. Not like store bought pork. It's a lot leaner, so you have to be careful to not overcook it and dry it out, but also cook it all the way so it's safe.

 

[JDZ735M]

no doubt any under cooked meat is potentially dangerous. but handling feral hogs can be harmful too:
interesting article. what caught my attention: "For instance, humans also can contract leptospirosis through contact with hogs’ blood, urine and other body fluids"

i'm sure the experienced & careful hunters that have posted here handle feral hogs safely w/gloves, & cook thoroughly etc. but there are amateurs that may put themselves at risk just through improper handling & cooking of a feral hog.
trichinosis, tapeworm, & swine brucellosis are also something i'd want to avoid.

https://www.louisianasportsman.com/hunting/hog-hunting/6-feral-hog-diseases-humans-can-contract/

It's pretty dangerous.

Tomball man contracts brucellosis from feral hogs | ABC13 Houston | abc13.com

This article has a little more detail:

Tomball man contracts brucellosis from feral hogs

HOUSTON — James Belcher developed symptoms that turned out to have nothing to do with swine flu but everything to do with hogs. Doctors earlier this year diagnosed the 76-year-old

www.itemonline.com

 

[jwmorris]

All of the little traps I have made seem to become ineffective pretty quick as they become wise to them before you can catch many.

So the first big trap I made was just in the woods along a trail they used. They already were going to feeders that had cattle panels with holes cut in them so deer could eat but cows couldn’t knock over the feeder.

Set it up and left it open for awhile so they could get comfortable with it. One 8ft wide gate at either end, so they could stop and eat or just keep going as normal.

At first I used game radios I had built (arrow) to let me know when they were in there and called a $5/month cell phone controlled trigger and activate the solenoid (former trunk release) to drop the gates.

Lots better at hog eradication after I switched to a cellular game camera, so I was sent photos of them as they trickled in and wait until they all finally went in to drop the gates.

It worked well but after we killed hundreds at that particular spot, I needed to move it to other problem areas on our place. Decided it would be too much work to move it so I built a more portable version that didn’t require lots of trees to anchor the panels to.

Then just move it to the location you want them gone from and wait for them to get acclimated to it.

If I put it around trees I throw a 1/6” cable over a limb and hang a bucket feeder, easier than moving a tripod.

And get them all.

 

[jwmorris]

I am not young enough to dress out many at once so I generally just back strap them and feed the buzzards with the rest.

After you knock back their population and their pressure on the deer, they start flowing in to fill the void and you can move on.

 

[EddieWalker]

Your approach is by far the most effective way at reducing their numbers. I'm fortunate that I know a guy who loves to sit in my deer blind all night and shoot them with his thermal, but for getting rid of a lot of pigs as quickly as possible, you have it figured out!!!

 

[two_bit_score]

@jwmorris that is almost exactly the Texas Parks and Wildlife hog trapping plan.

 

[jwmorris]

Do you have a link?

The only ones I had seen from them in my research were smaller or used a bunch of T posts and no one seemed to share how to do a remote trigger, had to develop that from nothing and since t-mobile acquired sprint and Tell, they keep telling me the cheap simple phones I am using are not going to work on their 5g network at some point. So I am going to have to figure something out and I feel it really needs the parental control to only answer incoming calls from numbers already stored in the device.