Wild Hogs in my front yard.

greatrandini · Jun 28, 2006

Very interesting about the French hogs. I read about Hogzilla and the DNA changes before. It is amazing how fast you can get an entire area populated with "wild pigs" from just a few escapes. I think it was about 10 years back maybe more or less when the market fell out from under the pork industry. Pig farmers were killing off large numbers of stock. Some decided to just let them go. Some people feel this is why we have so many feral pigs in TX, AR, Ok, etc....

stevenf · Jun 29, 2006

I have used a reference book made by a biologist for TPWD that has some interesting info that I thought I'd share the document is in a pdf book form and prints out nicely http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/publications/pwdpubs/media/pwd_bk_w7000_0195.pdf

Anyway the book is aging and the numbers in Texas are significantly increased but the info is worth a read and they have plans in the back of the book for numerous styles of hog traps. Its a good read for anyone considering trying to eradicate them but a calculator will tell you the a mature female capable of having two litters of up to 12 per year with an even mix of sows and boars should give you an idea of how completely impossible the task might be especially without everyone within numerous square miles doing their part. Just imagine best case scenario for reproduction 2=26=312=3744=44928 now these numbers don't take into consideration that some will perish, the baby sows don't reproduce for a year or so etc but you can see by the numbers that even if their half right that means in two years from two hogs you have 22464 wild hogs pretty scarry HUH! Thats a lot of 223 shells even in my book now do a little more math the book was written in 2003 I think they claimed 1.5 million hogs then OH baby thats a lot of hogs reproduced in just the last 3 years course they only have a eight year expected life cycle but WOW!
Steve