Posted on 02/22/2017 7:57:59 PM PST by Mariner
Texas has a new plan for its 2.5 million feral hogs: total annihilation.
Sid Miller, the state's agriculture commissioner, just approved a pesticide — called "Kaput Feral Hog Lure" — for statewide use.
"The 'hog apocalypse' may finally be on the horizon," Miller said in a statement on Tuesday.
SEE ALSO: First human-pig chimeras created, sparking hopes for transplantable organs — and debate
"This solution is long overdue," he added. "Wild hogs have caused extensive damage to Texas lands and loss of income for many, many years."
Texas's agriculture commission estimates that feral hogs cause $52 million in damage each year to agricultural businesses by tearing up crops and pastures, knocking down fences and ruining equipment.
The so-called hog lure is derived from warfarin, a blood-thinning agent that's also used to kill rats and mice in homes and buildings. Animals don't die immediately from eating the odorless, tasteless chemical. That would be too kind. Instead, they keep eating it until the anti-clotting properties cause them to bleed to death internally.
(Excerpt) Read more at yahoo.com ...
If it’s a piglet under 50 pounds, not bad. Otherwise they are gamey (may depend on how one dresses the carcass).
Now some hunters do trap them, finish them on corn feed to get the gaminess out, then slaughter them. Just one thing, domestic hogs can be dangerous enough, wild boars are another matter. And then there is probably no chance of cleaning up something as big as Hogzilla with corn feed, too far gone.
People don’t have much sympathy for the hogs the way they tear up your property. I’m sure they probably attack young deer as well.
There are AR-pattern shotguns, it looks like that's what they're using. There are some frames of the video that show the oversized magazine clearly. The right-side charging handle is another "shotgun" feature.
Very effective.
Hogs are cannibals. They’ll eat the carcasses and the wounded.
.308 (a.k.a 7.62x51) I would consider as a minimum. 5.56 would require several rounds, in the case of Hogzilla, piss him off. I have heard of some people considering a rifled slug from a shotgun, but the range is not ideal.
For safety, I would prefer some good range and hitting power, since I prefer to have some distance if Hogzilla and friends decide to charge.
.223
Trap them, put them in pens and feed them mudslimes for a few months then slaughter them for fine eating.
There, fixed it for you.
Sure hope that this stuff is flavored so that only the feral hogs will take the bait. Like others have asked... how is it going to be kept only to the feral hogs?
Import Filipinos.
I thought it was 00 buckshot. Thanks.
Uh...No.
1 month and counting. Brother and law put together a weekend night shoot with thermal sights in Texas. He just got back from a company hog shoot outside of Corpus Christi and he nailed over 20 of those nasty oversized rats.
Back in 2003, when I first moved to central Georgia onto the old home place, the bastids were coming up in broad daylight to eat me pecans! Well, needless to say I wasn’t having that for very long and I think my grand total was 19 pigs(spread over about 8 months). I was in ‘hog heaven’ so to speak! BBQ’d whole one of the smaller ones, had shoulder roasts, ribs and tenderloin to die for, and once made some of the best smoked link sausage I’ve ever tasted. The population had exploded so bad then that the state DNR relaxed the rules so that hunting over bait was now legal and even allowed the use of 12 volt lights with a no limit, year-round season on them. I eventually set up a ‘killing field’ with a blind in the pasture below the house once the natural ‘bait’ of my pecans were gone and began shooting them at night over soured corn(best hog bait known!) One night I counted 27 pigs that came in before I couldn’t stand it any longer and put 5 rounds into the middle of the biggest group(killed 2 and wounded at least one more that was never found.)
But one evening whilst I was butchering what seemed to be a healthy pig, was #8 or 9-I think, I suddenly noticed something moving inside around the spine. It was a white, flat, worm-like ‘thing’ about 2 inches or so long and it was crawling out from in between two of the vertebra. Nobody has ever been able to tell me what it was-not even my lil’ bro who has a Phd. in poultry science. It was def. some sort of a parasite and the buzzards feasted well on that pig and the rest that I killed were given away with very stern warnings. I never ate another bite of wild pig after that. Shortly afterwards, a nearby commercial tomato farmer got so fed up with his massive losses that he instituted a snare and poisoning program and within about a month they all just ‘disappeared’...
Check out how much it costs to hunt menace feral swine in Texas and other states where complaints abound. It’s big business. Make it worthwhile for folks to kill pigs and things might be a bit different.
Poisoning is extremely risky and I doubt the land owners, who profit from pig hunting, will use it.
What can one do to take the gamey taste out of wild game?
I have been wanting to go after hog for a long time with my old Trapdoor. Am using traditional loads for it and I have gotten good enough to drop deer sized targets at 300 yards over open sights. Opinions?
Why can’t they be shot and excess meat donated to soup kitchens. We have feral hogs here in NH. We have eaten them. A little tough but tastey.
Is it open hunting or do the land owners want to get paid to kill the hogs?
AR’s in various calibers seem to be the go to rifle of choice with 223 being the smallest. Not to often you run into single hog’s unless it’s a lone boar, most of the time it’s sounders of 10 or more. We’ve had them on the ranch a few times but nothing like farther east and south. They’re just now making it into far West Texas. Both of my hog rifles are DPMS in 223/5.56 and 308. One or the other rides with me daily. Since they’re used from the truck I keep them to 10 round mag’s making them a little less cumbersome and quicker to get out the window.
I’m totally against using poison since there is no way of controlling it once dispersed and anything feeding on the carcass once it’s dead will be subject to poisoning especially predators and scavengers.
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