Fixing hog rootings

TxMex · #1 12/14/14, 09:14 AM

While tilling up the garden the other day I was admiring how level the tiller makes the dirt. Then I thought....wish I could do that to the danged wild pig rootings down in my bottom. Hey! There's an idea!

So I took my 40 hp tractor with a 5ft tiller down to the area where the pigs have been rooting for the last week. In areas where they have made great big holes I had to go across it twice. For average pig rootings of about 8 inches deep this is what it looks like after 1 pass.

Now I am going to watch and see if the pigs work the tilled areas especially hard or about as usual. Actually if they work them really hard and don't dig up a lot of the rest of the pasture that isn't a bad thing as at least the damage would be more confined. I'll report back on the results.

TxMex · #2 12/14/14, 09:17 AM

I don't know why the picture is sideways. Sorry.

BlueRose · #3 12/14/14, 09:28 AM

I will be very interested in the results.

elkhound · #4 12/14/14, 09:59 AM

did ya seed it with something?

arnie · #5 12/14/14, 10:11 AM

good looking soil and no rocks. no wonder those pigs like rooting there, bet they were finding plety o worms

TxMex · #6 12/14/14, 11:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by elkhound

did ya seed it with something?

I plan to do that this spring

krackin · #7 12/14/14, 05:03 PM

Why can't you put winter rye out and shoot the hogs? Or vice versa?

simi-steading · #8 12/14/14, 05:58 PM

Easier way... Once my pigs get done rooting up my garden, I will go over it with one of these.. A box scraper.. Not only will it level the area, buy you can also use it to move dirt around to re-grade the land if you want it to drain different than it used to..

I used mine to re-grade my side yard that drained towards the house. Now it drains into a lower spot in the center of the yard and out to the road.

Fixing hog rootings - Homesteading Questions

Fixing hog rootings - Homesteading Questions

Fire-Man · #9 12/14/14, 06:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TxMex

Now I am going to watch and see if the pigs work the tilled areas especially hard or about as usual. Actually if they work them really hard and don't dig up a lot of the rest of the pasture that isn't a bad thing as at least the damage would be more confined. I'll report back on the results.

Do you trap the wild hogs---to get rid of them??

big rockpile · #10 12/14/14, 06:37 PM

Hogs like rooting where it is easy to, bad if your trying to plant certain things. Guy here put two strands of Hot Wire around his Corn field.

Didn't work.

And I'm sure you know if you hunt or Trap them they just move on for awhile giving someone else the problem.

big rockpile

simi-steading · #11 12/14/14, 06:50 PM

Oh, I didn't catch it was wild pigs.. .Yep.. I'd fix that buy shooting them... Free meat, and less work fixing the land.

TxMex · #12 12/14/14, 09:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by krackin

Why can't you put winter rye out and shoot the hogs? Or vice versa?

I'm not interested in planting winter rye. I'm a beekeeper and I'm only interested in planting nectar producing plants.

Quote:

Originally Posted by simi-steading

Easier way... Once my pigs get done rooting up my garden, I will go over it with one of these.. A box scraper.. Not only will it level the area, buy you can also use it to move dirt around to re-grade the land if you want it to drain different than it used to..

I used mine to re-grade my side yard that drained towards the house. Now it drains into a lower spot in the center of the yard and out to the road.

That won't work on my place. I have all bottom land and it is pretty soft. My tractor would bury up if I was actually trying to move dirt rather than just till it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fire-Man

Do you trap the wild hogs---to get rid of them??

One year a fella trapped hogs on my place and averaged taking a pig a day. Right around 350 pigs in one year! I'll never get rid of them. I am near a big lake and the hogs run up and down these bottom lands. Unless there was a county wide intensive effort.....trapping/shooting hogs here is like stepping on ants.

simi-steading · #13 12/14/14, 10:12 PM

Wow.. I wish I had that kinda hunting... and to think of how much I pay to feed a pig so I can eat...

Then again, here they have a season.. Thankfully since we have a season on hogs, we don't have any wild hogs doing the damage we can't shoot..

Out here, if we had wild hogs, I'd bet I'd be having a hard time keeping people off my land looking for them.. .LOTS of poaching here.. .only because people poach for food, not for the thrill..

arcticow · #14 12/14/14, 10:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by simi-steading

Wow.. I wish I had that kinda hunting... and to think of how much I pay to feed a pig so I can eat...

Then again, here they have a season.. Thankfully since we have a season on hogs, we don't have any wild hogs doing the damage we can't shoot..

Out here, if we had wild hogs, I'd bet I'd be having a hard time keeping people off my land looking for them.. .LOTS of poaching here.. .only because people poach for food, not for the thrill..

Trust me you DON'T want that kind of wild hog pressure... Hoggers are getting a bad name for cutting fences, tearing out gates, etc. to get into places to poach... Tear up and steal folks blind... And no amount of hunting pressure makes that big a dent in the population... Free meat? Maybe to the poachers, but to the landholders it AIN'T cheap...

TxMex · #15 12/14/14, 10:26 PM

I have lots of poaching here too, but mostly it is duck hunters. It's bad enough that I'm on a first name basis with my local game warden.

Found that a game camera I had on a trail leading into my place was tampered with this last week. Time to put up another camera watching that camera.

simi-steading · #16 12/14/14, 10:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by arcticow

Trust me you DON'T want that kind of wild hog pressure... Hoggers are getting a bad name for cutting fences, tearing out gates, etc. to get into places to poach... Tear up and steal folks blind... And no amount of hunting pressure makes that big a dent in the population... Free meat? Maybe to the poachers, but to the landholders it AIN'T cheap...

This is pretty much what I figured.. After sitting and watching my sow that's half wild hog, I couldn't even begin to imagine the damage a herd of them could do... Rootin'ist pig I've ever seen...

buffalocreek · #17 12/15/14, 10:35 AM

Are those wild pigs good to eat? I would think that massive organized hunts could cut their number down quite a bit while providing food for poor people. Saw a documentary on them where, in Texas, they are experimenting with poisoning them. Seems a waste. You'd think with enough guns in the brush, they could be seriously thinned out. After all, look what they did to the passenger pigeons.

big rockpile · #18 12/15/14, 11:41 AM

Around here they kill them and leave them lay. Hogs are smart, they start getting hunted and trapped they become very nocturnal and leave the area. If a Sow has Little ones and she is killed another Sow will adopt her Babies. They start having litters at 6 months old and have 3 litters a year. Figure 50% of Little ones are Gilts, they add up in a years time. You have to kill 75% just to keep numbers stable.

Yes I enjoy hunting them and eat the meat. In Missouri State Wide we have Pockets of Hogs they are spreading and most will die of Old Age.

What is left of a Corn Field after Hogs

A Wallow

big rockpile

big rockpile · #19 12/15/14, 10:59 PM

Just looked state is trying to discourage people here from hunting Hogs because it will movethem out of area.

big rockpile

TxMex · #20 12/15/14, 11:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by buffalocreek

Are those wild pigs good to eat? I would think that massive organized hunts could cut their number down quite a bit while providing food for poor people. Saw a documentary on them where, in Texas, they are experimenting with poisoning them. Seems a waste. You'd think with enough guns in the brush, they could be seriously thinned out. After all, look what they did to the passenger pigeons.

I'd eat it if I was really really hungry and it was a young pig. I don't like the taste though it is 'edible'. Boars are inedible as far as I'm concerned.