Huge hog

http://www.foxnews.com/story/2007/01/07/eleven-hundred-pound-hogzilla-killed-in-georgia.html

1100 pounder shot in GA

That domestic is an interesting pig - not massively fat and unable to move, like the ones at the state fair that are so fat that they can't even stand..... that is a giant hog that is totally healthy and mobile...

I've shot a bunch of pigs in the last 20 years. We have lots of them here in Texas.

Of all of them, maybe one would make 300 lbs. Very few have made 200

I hear all kinds of stories about pigs 2 and 3 times the size of any I've ever seen.

Is there potential for super sized oinkers? Maybe.

Supersize oinkers make supersize bacon. I volunteer for being part of the test group.

There simply is not enough food/nutrition in the wild for pigs to get huge. You have to figure that they have to cover alot of area everyday just to survive, that right there will make them lean not to mention feral hog genetics.

Raise cattle and butcher a "grass fed" cow and take another cow off grass, pen it up and feed it corn based feed for 60-90 days and butcher it and get back with me on which one gets fatter and heavier.


I also live in Texas and you just don't see many feral hogs over 250Lbs.

I've seen photos of very large hogs in the south Texas brush country. Mostly south of US 90 and west of I-37. They appeared to justify claims of 400 to 500 pounds. Also credible reports of a few monsters along the Guadalupe River bottoms around Cuero.

Game camera photos I've received in emails from friends have shown sounders in the hill country mostly NW of San Antonio where the more common size for mature adults looked to be maybe 200 pounds.

I've seen pigs shot that pushed close to 400 lbs. I've never taken one over 200, though. I'm not sure one over that would fit through the door of my trap, LOL. I've seen some big ones in the wild that probably would go 300, but it was in a high fence ranch and they fed their game well inside that 700 acres.

Now, riding a pig to town would get you some looks, even in Texas. LOL!

dubbleA said:

There simply is not enough food/nutrition in the wild for pigs to get huge. You have to figure that they have to cover alot of area everyday just to survive, that right there will make them lean not to mention feral hog genetics.

Raise cattle and butcher a "grass fed" cow and take another cow off grass, pen it up and feed it corn based feed for 60-90 days and butcher it and get back with me on which one gets fatter and heavier.


I also live in Texas and you just don't see many feral hogs over 250Lbs.

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Exactly. Wild hogs aren't sitting in a pen eating all day. They have to work hard to make a living and that work burns the weight off.

I've seen and killed a lot of hogs in the wild, my biggest I figure around the 400 mark. They seem to be able to find the corn feeders and fatten up nice on a corn diet, but it is hard to imagine one living in the wilds getting to gigantic proportions. Now if they were living off the high protein feed that deer are fed to make them grow larger horns and bigger bodies, that could be a reason for the growth. I feed deer some of the 18% protein feed which included molasses in it and they really like it. If a pig was kept in a smaller area where exercise was limited and fed large quantities of that type of feed...possibly?????

Well that sow in the video looked like a castrated boar to me. A friend of mine sent a old sow for slaughter that went over 750lbs.

Skoghund said:

Well that sow in the video looked like a castrated boar to me. A friend of mine sent a old sow for slaughter that went over 750lbs.

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Yep...a lot of them get trapped...cut and released here in East and Southeast Texas to go eat acorns and root in river bottoms. I've seen a couple in East Texas hanging from trees that were huge but went un-weighed. They had to be over 400 pounds and I was impressed the tree limb didn't break.

Both had been shot with 270s and they needed every caliber of it according to the two guys that shot them.

I've seen one hog out in a field when I was duck hunting and at first glance I thought it was a black angus bull.

However, as said by others, most don't get that big and it's probably a genetic anomaly that allows the occasional monster.

I'm 6'2 and our football team went to an NFL camp one season in the 70s' and no way just feed made some of those guys make me feel like a munchkin. There were a couple of times when they would come into the dining hall the first couple of days my first primordial instinct was to RUN! So huge happens...not often but it does.

Porcine equivalents of the Baylor lineman who's 6'-7" and 400 pounds.

Killing a hog that big in the wild is one great achievement.

Huge hog, but small man

I've shot a bunch of pigs in the last 20 years. We have lots of them here in Texas.

Of all of them, maybe one would make 300 lbs. Very few have made 200

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I have good data on 128 hogs I have killed.

24 less than 100 lbs
70 100-199
33 200-299
1 >300 (322 lbs)

Basically what I noticed is that if shooting lone boars, there is a disproportionately higher number that are >200 lbs (only 3 sows were that large). That isn't to say that there aren't big boars sometimes with sounders. A couple of the boars that large were shot with sounders, but generally speaking, they were probably visitors and not residents.

When shooting sounders, the hogs tend to be smaller. Boars, as they mature, break away from the sounders. So the largest individuals tend to be females and then tended to be <200 lbs. Of course, all the juveniles were less than 200 lbs.

I do try to shoot the largest hogs I see first, and then whatever is available, but you don't have many size options when loners. This pattern seems to fit other hunt areas. If you aren't seeing many pigs over 200 lbs, my guess is that you are seeing the sounders and/or that there is sufficient hunting pressure in your area that the larger hogs are being culled regularly.

I've seen and killed a lot of hogs in the wild, my biggest I figure around the 400 mark. They seem to be able to find the corn feeders and fatten up nice on a corn diet,

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Yes, I've always had a small place to hunt in an area of small places with feeders. If I could afford a large place, that'd be great, but I was a working stiff and land ain't cheap. Heck, right now, it's going for 10K an acre around me. That's just nuts, but we got this place as a HUD repo pretty reasonable. Where I'm living now, mostly 10-30 acre tracts with some bigger properties at least on this private road. Lots of feeders in the woods and the pigs fatten up well. Last several I've trapped had enough fat on 'em, I didn't bother mixing fat when making the sausage. In fact, that last one I used to mix 60/40 with venison to make my venison sausage the other day. And, he had a fatty, bacon belly on him I saved to try to make my own bacon when I can get some curing salt for the process. Wife looked it up online, but I've not gotten around to messing with it, yet, due to duck season occupying my time lately.

Addendum to the above post, my other property I've had and hunted since 1988 (trying to sell at the moment) was infested with over 90 percent European wild boar phenotype escaped from a big ranch up the road that was stocked with 'em in the 30s. I was on a fence line with a large ranch, too, but there were a few other feeders around me. But, those pigs didn't put the pounds on, think it was their genetics. They were some mean suckers and when I'd be out there dove hunting, I'd occasionally hear 'em burning calories in the brush fighting each other. The pigs around here are all feral and that might be a reason they tend to be fattier. I'm not really sure, just know these pigs have more fat on 'em than the ones down there I've been shooting. I used to always add fat to those pigs when making sausage. I've yet to see a pig that lean here.

I've never seen one of those wild boar in the 25 years or so I hunted my other place that was REALLY big. I passed on one once that walk by that was big enough I didn't wanna mess with him, but he probably wasn't 300 lbs, more like 250. Up here, I've caught some on camera that would top that. Like I say, though, I don't think they'd fit in my trap. That trap might have been designed that way, catch the ones that taste the best. LOL

I shot a 500lb-ish feral hog (just under 7 feet long from snout to butt) that was mostly of domesticated stock about a decade ago in Wise County, Texas. Evidently, eating acorns and corn from the feeders helps grow 'em big...

We don't have enough pigs in New York yet and those that are here we are not allowed to hunt. Its been a goal to hunt them somewhere. I was in Florida early this year and saw one on the other side of the fence on I75 just north of Tampa.

Plenty down here in FL; all over the place, especially in the suburbs

Plenty down here in FL; all over the place, especially in the suburbs

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Well, ya know, the reticulated pythons need something to eat.