My Destiny At Last

Fellow sportsmen and gentle readers,

Through these fine electronic pages I have finally stumbled upon it.

Nobody wants to go down without being remembered for something and I have found my cause celeb as it were

Now, you are all aware I am sure about the terrible, feral hog problem we face in Texas. They are like vermin and are everywhere, very destructive and a little dangerous.

My plan now is to somehow obtain some African wart hog semen and begin impregnating some of the captured sows and then releasing them.

In no time at all I think, Texas will be butt deep in some warty, hairy, smelly wart hog / swine hybrid. Big tusks, bad attitude. It worked with the Russian boar crosses but apparently we just didn't go far enough.

The new Texas Wart Hog.

It will go down in the annals of history right there with the fire ant, the huisache tree and killer bees. I will be famous if not infamous. What a legacy!

Now, all I need is a source for Warthog semen....and I figure that certainly there is some enterprising, off season PH that might help me out on that count.

I write this today more out of frustration than entertainment. I just got a call from the ranch and a herd of hogs came through last night and wiped out a garden, destroyed and irrigated hay meadow with their rooting and did about $3,000 damage to some protein feeders in the river pasture.

So, instead of beer and bar-b-q at the lake this holiday, guess where I have to be?

I can't help you out with the Warthog semen, but depending on where you are in Texas my son and I might could help you put down a few hogs.

BTW, what's a huisache tree? More importantly how do you say huisache?

Brother Phil

That would be pronounced " We sach " starts out as a little shrub, thorns are 3 - 4 inches, thin leaves, ugly yellow flowers very drought resistant, grows to about a 40 foot tree. They will start in a clear pasture and in 5 years be so thick you can't walk through it. Velpar and Rotun have no effect on it. I have heard that 2,4,5 T would kill it but I can only get that in Mexico and right now the smuggling routes are a bit on the congested side if you know what I mean.

I'm in south Texas and have a night scope equipped hog killing AR-15 ready to join the fight against the feral swine.

Second Wind said:

Brother Phil

That would be pronounced " We sach " starts out as a little shrub, thorns are 3 - 4 inches, thin leaves, ugly yellow flowers very drought resistant, grows to about a 40 foot tree. They will start in a clear pasture and in 5 years be so thick you can't walk through it. Velpar and Rotun have no effect on it. I have heard that 2,4,5 T would kill it but I can only get that in Mexico and right now the smuggling routes are a bit on the congested side if you know what I mean.

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Got it, sounds worse than mesquite. At least mesquite makes for good meat smoking.

Brother Phil,

Smoking meat over Huisache imparts kind of a diesel - Kerosene flavor.

Different to be sure but not really all that desirable. Burns with a sort of dark gray to black smoke

A really distinct acetylene after taste that I find kind of off putting

p3Fe

you do know that most everyone here thinks we are all kidding about this hog problem

little do they know

a sow has 16 piglets
8 are female
in 10 moths those 8 deliver 16 piglets
she does this at least twice a year
within a year those original 8 females have 16 piglets
1/2 of those are female
I think I saw that where one sow, over three years with her her protegey puts something like 4,800 new pigs in the herd
okay lets say I am 1/2 wrong thats only 2400 pigs in 3 years

Problem? hell, you do the math

It's a big problem down here. Some ranches pay people to come and shoot as many as they can. For every one you kill there are 10 more to replace it in a few weeks. Remember these are feral domestic pigs that got away, they should not be here, and they are on the move it won't be too long before they have infested the entire country.

Second Wind said:

It will go down in the annals of history right there with the fire ant, the huisache tree and killer bees. I will be famous if not infamous. What a legacy!

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Yep - they still know the name of the i...t who introduced rabbits into Australia... Seriously, wouldn't it be better to be remembered as the guy who solved the problem? Isn't there a "swine flu" virus that could be introduced to decimate them (myxomatosis did quite well on rabbits for a while), and then hunt the survivors mercilessly? After all, a pig is bigger than a rabbit, so if 80% die in the epidemic, the remaining 20% should succumb to serious hunting before they have a chance to get the numbers back up. Now, biosecurity is not going to be hot on the idea, but I know a second rabbit virus (name escapes me at the moment) was secretly introduced into New Zealand when the critters started getting resistant to myxo. Might be easier to import than wart hog semen (and BTW, how were you going to get a wild sow to hold still for the artificial insemination? I shudder at the picture!).

Timbear,

All very good points you put forth and here we have wrestled with most if not all of them from time to time. Let me share a little clarity and purpose that may make our present problem a bit more focused:

There was, at one time and for only a very brief period, a suggestion to introduce a rhino virus to assist in control of the feral hog population and then, the Mid West pork producers went nearly insane! Commercial pork production is a multi-Billion dollar industry in this country and, when coupled with the feed producers it becomes a major force, both economically and politically, to be reckoned with. The introduction of any biological solution is just never going to happen.

So, the solution, or mine at least, centers around the common wart hog. Now why you might ask:

#1 the wart hog, or hybrid thereof, would end up the dominant species;

#2 the most significant trait of the hybrid would hope to be smaller litters, 2-4 piglets 1x year as opposed to up to 16 more than 2x year

#3 This cross will create a huntable "game" animal, say what you will about hunting feral hogs, they are not "game" so, from the rancher's standpoint you are replacing the existing roaming feral hog population with a smaller number of higher value animals

Your concern about the actual deed is really unfounded although not pretty
Artifical insemination is a recognized, accepted practice in the swine industry and the technology is mature. Trapping a wild sow is not a problem in that people have been doing that for years very successfully. So;

trap the sow, sedate her and administer a product that stimulates / causes estrus and when the thermometer says yes, you inseminate her artificially. Once the deed is done you release her into the wild.

The culling continues with vigor, however, the clearly marked inseminated sows are not culled but left to reproduce.

Yes, it will take some work and some money But, the end result I think will be worth it. We have eliminated the destructive , roaming herds of feral hogs and replaced them with a high value game animal.

Besides, I think this end of it is the easy part. Producing sufficient quantities of common wart hog semen may be ummm.... the "awkward" part part of this deal.



#4

Sorry you will be working on the long weekend holiday man.
Seems pigs are going to take over the world.
France, Texas, where next!!?

Second Wind said:

Your concern about the actual deed is really unfounded although not pretty
Artifical insemination is a recognized, accepted practice in the swine industry and the technology is mature. Trapping a wild sow is not a problem in that people have been doing that for years very successfully.

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Sorry, I was just pulling your leg a little, I am quite familiar with the process. Have warthogs ever cross-bred with ordinary hogs? And is the litter size is inherited from the warthog and not from the feral hog? Feral hogs are quite a problem in NZ, being known as "Capt'n Cookers" after the man who introduced them. A farming friend of mine shot 27 on one winter day from his kitchen window as they were trying to get into his feed stores!

Second Wind said:

you do know that most everyone here thinks we are all kidding about this hog problem

little do they know

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Oh, I know!

In Germany we have similar problems with the European Boar (just google "Wildschwein" and "Berlin")
These animals are not shy and used to human civilization, so they go into the suburbs of Berlin, even at daylight, search through gardens, dustbins, whatever, leaving a big mess behind.
Unfortunately there are several people who regard them as "poor pets" and even feed them!

They are becoming a bigger and bigger problem.

Berlin, capital of wild hogs....