[cola8d8]

I dont know these people, someone just emailed me these pictures. Said this pig weighed 870 lbs and was 7 ft. 2 inches long from snout to tail.

[cola8d8]

same

[cola8d8]

another

[Steve Smith]

Huntin' pigs at a hog farm is easy. LOL!

[4v50 Gary]

That's a lot of chops, sausage meat & links. 5" of snout? Wow!

[Keith]

Somebody 'splain it to me... I thought feral pigs all developed tusks, yet this big old boar doesn't have any.

What's the deal with that? Do all feral pigs have tusks, or only ones with wild boar genes?

Keith

[H&Hhunter]

Somebody 'splain it to me... I thought feral pigs all developed tusks, yet this big old boar doesn't have any.

Keith,

Absoloutly untrue...

It all depends on the pigs previous breeding. And many time a big hog will have worn them off or broken them off fighting.

All pigs have Needle teeth that will develop into Canines or "tusks" but some breeds do not develop large tusks. In fact it's been my observation after several thousand pigs that very few large boars have good teeth if they are not mixed with some type of wild breed like a European or Russian boar.

Many of the ferals you find in Texas aren't to far removed from a pure Duroc, Hamshire or some such. I am even starting to see more and more Potbelly hybreds ( remeber the potbelly fad a few years ago) out and about and they'll get huge but have no teeth to speak of.

Here is an example of an almost pure european ferral he only about 250 lbs but has nearly 3&1/2" tusks.

[H&Hhunter]

Now here is another example of a ferral who does not have much "wild" breeding he's probably decended from a Hamshire at one time. He's actually a little larger in body but had no teeth to speak of.

[Selfdfenz]

TX plates on the vech.s.
I guess there are some "big ones" in some locations down our way.


S-

[Keith]

Hey, thanks for the lesson!

It would seem to me that the wild boar would be the more desirable animal from a hunters point of view. So, I have to ask, since almost all of this hunting is a managed affair on private land (at least in Texas), why don't they cull out the feral pigs and encourage wild pigs? Wouldn't they attract more hunters that way?


Keith

[Jeremae]

Culling feral pigs just makes the herd smarter.... They basically have no preditors but man to worry about and breed large litters multple times a year.

[cola8d8]

Here is the email I got with it...

This is no BS...they killed it right at the smith county greg
> county
> > > > line
> > > > > in
> > > > > > a river bottom...weighed 870 lbs and was 7 ft. 2 inches long
from
> > > snout
> > > > to
> > > > > > tail.....I have seen lots of 300-350 lb pigs but this SOB is
> > > > > > unbelievable....They weighed it on a $7000 scale at Weatherford
> tool
> > > in
> > > > > > Kilgore used for oil equipment...shot it with a 357 rifle a few
> > > > > times.......

[H&Hhunter]

Well keith,

On a game ranch that is high fenced that would be an option as well as introducing some good genes into the herd.

I hunt on a 200,000 acre place in north Texas that is open range country. And the hogs are shot off of it as vermin. So it's really not an option. Ferral hogs are one of the smartest critters on earth. So they do actually present quite a challenge especially if you want a good one.

I truely enjoy hog hunting on "my" place as it is wild open country and the hogs roam free.

Another thing you'll find ocasionally is a guilded hog in the wild. Some of them have been cut and let loose as babies (some trappers like to do this???) others have been cut on a farm and then escaped and other are cut in a fight.

In any case they tend to get much larger than an intact boar. I suspect that the boar in that picture is probably cut. The largest intact boar I've ever killed was right at 500lbs.

[St. Gunner]

I'm pretty sure that is the Feed store in Pearsall Texas, not positive, but I have seen that truck several times around here in Devine. Do you have anymore shots that show more of the truck or the buildings around it?

I bet someone did shoot that pig in a field, but with the Hog market bottoming and some idiots buying em cheap and turning em out, their is no telling how "WILD" it is. It is a big pig, i'd have to see a pic of the hog on the scale verifying the weight to believe it weighed 870lbs. I shot a sow six years ago that was 9'7" long snout to tail and she weighed right at 500lbs, 200lb scale on the back legs and a 300lb on the front legs and she bottomed them both, but not by much. It takes a hell of a hog to pull 800lbs, i've seen some go through auction rings, but the loins are more pronounced and the chest deeper.

That pig looks alot like one I have been hunting for years and never got killed. I'd be interested in any info you can get on that hog, specifically where he was killed(general area) or if you know the guy just ask if he killed the hog between BigFoot and Charlotte along 1549. The sob I have been hunting flipped my feeder a week ago and ate corn out of the barrel.:cuss: Tore it all up.

If you can email the guy who sent it and see if he can find more info on it.

Just saw your post, but I am still going to Pearsall this weekend to look at that feed store. The truck has the same stickers on the window as one I have seen here. Hmmmm...

[Keith]

I'm not following you. These hunts are managed affairs on private land. If you simply discourage the harvest of animals with boar genes for a time, more of those animals would breed and eventually you'd have herds of critters more resembling wild boars than feral pigs. If you don't have any pure Russian Boars, you'd have to introduce and protect them until they become a majority.

My impression was that wild boars are black and hairy and thus easy to distinguish from the feral pigs. Maybe that's not the case? I just figured that if I owned a big piece of land and catered to hunters, I'd manage it to try and produce critters that were most attractive to hunters.

I don't know much about pigs or pig hunting, so that's why I'm asking. Pig hunting sounds like a lot of fun.

Keith

[Keith]

H,

Looks like our notes crossed. Yeah, if the landowner isn't actively managing the hogs as a resource then... what the heck!

I know there isn't any public land in Texas to speak of, so I figured all of the hunting was more actively managed. I guess that's not the case with some of those big ranches who just allow hunting as a sideline.

Keith

[St. Gunner]

Keith,

The state did a study, they claim that with 4 sows and 1 boar turned loose, in 10years you would have a million hogs. Keith it isn't a managed deal like you imagine, most of this country is so thick you can't see your hand in front of your face. The harder you hunt, them, the smarter they become, they make a mature whitetail look stupid. I took dogs to a ranch a few years ago to try and catch 23 head that they couldn't shoot with a helicopter, they would hear the bird and run, they'd see them, but could never get them. We didn't either, when the dogs barked they scattered like quail.

Manage for pure strain genes, sure, poison everyone out with some disease and start over. Part of the problem is the domestic strains breed 2.5times per year, the pure Russian or European only do so once, and the litters are smaller. By the laws of numbers it won't work.

[Keith]

>>>>>Part of the problem is the domestic strains breed 2.5times per year, the pure Russian or European only do so once, and the litters are smaller. By the laws of numbers it won't work.<<<<<

Ah! Well, there ya go!

Keith

[coldshot03/04]

They shot someones hog that got loose.tehe... I have never seen a wild hog or feral that darn big.:rolleyes:

[Dr.Rob]

My first thought was "Farmer Brown is sho' gonna be pissed seein' somebody done shot his Christmas ham."

On the other hand, my dad did a ranch hunt for wild hog (domestic crossbred w/Russian wild boar) and said he had a heck of a time. He managed to shoot a dry sow that was 300 pounds or so. We didn't care for the meat but I suspect that was the fault of the "outfitters" in the field doing the dressing, rather than dad. Btw, dad zapped his in a head-on shot through the neck/shoulder that zipped through lungs/heart and out the opposite side just forward of the hind leg with a 165gr 30-06. DRT.

I've also heard MANY an African hunter say while the trophy might not look as good, warthog is a heck of a lot of fun to hunt.

[H&Hhunter]

They shot someones hog that got loose.tehe... I have never seen a wild hog or feral that darn big.

Coldshot,

Now don't get me wrong I ain't defending the guys in the picture in anyway and I am not trying to say that it's real or not. But wild ferrals can get pretty darn big. I'm with St Gunner however I'm doubting the 870Lb =thing.


Here is a picture of one of the biggest ferrals I've ever killed (not the biggest) Any guesses on weight.

Not quite 400Lbs

[Steve Smith]

I will say it out loud and will hope to be proven wrong.

The hog in the pic was from a bacon farm.

[Keith]

H,

I'd say the hog in that last picture is 200 pounds, or less. It's real easy to overguesstimate the weight of critters.

Keith

[St. Gunner]

H&H, I figure from judging your chest at 18" that the hog is slightly over 5' long on the ground. I figure he is about 3 heads deep through the chest. Thick but not overly thick. I'd put that pig at right around 280lbs dressed weight, so somewhere in the neighborhood of 330lbs or so live. Pics are not easy to judge by, I figure the cutters are right around 3" long, so you can tell me how close my measurements are.

Did you ever get that hog on a scale, he is a brute.

I'm normally pretty close on weights, if I am looking at them in person. But we kill a bunch and always verify weights with a scale, so you sorta learn to judge.

[H&Hhunter]

St Gunner,

Your real darn close in fact I'd say we have a winner. I've had people estimate that hog anywhere from 1000lbs down. He's a big ole toad no doubt but he ain't gonna make 400lbs like you said.

We killed a big ole bruiser alast year that went a shade under 500lbs. I'll try and get my buddy to send the picture. Untill you've seen a hog that big you can't believe how much pig that is...........

To answer your question I never got him on a scale whole but we had one of those 100lb fishing type scales and we came up with about 325 lbs weighing the parts so he was probably with in 20Lbs of that.

Depending on how much beerr I've had I just round up to next hundred>>>;)

You know, 400lb hog just sounds better
Like 1000lb elk
or
1200Lb grizzly
or
12"......uh trout.

[Keith]

The hog is the same in length as you are in height. And obviously you are sitting or kneeling behind it which makes the pig in front appear even larger. I don't know from hogs, but if that was a deer of similar girth and length, I'd still call it 200 pounds.

Keith

[makdaddy03]

SO!!!!! Thats WHERE MY HOG WENT!!!!!!!!!!!!:fire:

[St. Gunner]

Yep on the radio we give city weights, "I killed a 500lb boar over here just now." Translation, "he might weigh 250lbs."

I have had the chance to shoot a few boars in among domestic hogs, almost without exception the wild boars look larger than domestics, because they are taller. But i've had the owner tell me to shoot domestic boars for him and put them side by side with a feral and on the scale the domestic will almost always outweigh the feral, even when the feral looks larger.

A few years ago a pic was circulating of a large hamp marked boar, claimed to be a feral, weighing 490lbs. The guy was from near here, and was registered at Los Cazadores, but he never entered the pig, cause it was a domestic, but he sure fooled lots of folks on the net. Had him propped up by a yucca plant with his bow in hand.

Steve