Aloha! I was not sure where this question would go but I thought that since this is a problem with that homesteaders in some areas might have. I have a problem with wild boars dugging up the lawn. Now in most places this would not be a problem but when you live in Hawaii and you have to bring in your own soil then plant your own grass then this turns into a problem...lol.
Does anyone know of anything that you can do to keep the pigs away? I really do not want to kill them. I have been trying to find out information online of something like if urine can keep them away but no luck thus far. Any information, websites or phone numbers would be great!
WIld Boar...
Put a radio on your porch and play it loudly....I live in East Texas and wild boars are a horrendous problem here.....many people have excellent results doing this. Hope it helps you
Where have been doing this for years we keep 3 radios going 24/7 around the land so that where ever we are we can hear music but I guess after doing this for so long it no longer works. You must not forget that pigs are really smart and will test your "defences"...lol.
Wild boar are a growing problem here and FL as well. They are a nightmare for commercial pig farmers because they break into their farms. We have freinds in commercial pork farming who have had problems with wild boar in S. GA.. That said, the meat is awesome if you know someone who hunts.
We rescued a Plott hound four years ago. They are bred to hunt boar. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plott_Hound but we don't have a boar problem in N. GA.. Plott hounds are not like Retrievers or Pointers; they go out and bring home the meat. We didn't understand that when we rescued her and thought we were bringing home this sad sack, layed back, long eared hound. We are forever cleaning up her "offerings". She's not that big (65 lbs) considering what she can bring down. The neighbor's horse got nasty with her and the next thing we knew the horse was on the ground. Maybe you need a Plott hound? In between baying and pillaging she sleeps.
Every place I look people are talking about killing them, I do not even eat meat and do not want to kill unless forced.
Guess a Plott hound is not your answer then. However, if boar are a problem in your area it would be wise to educate yourself about them. They can be quite aggressive and dangerous even when not provoked. They are not kept away from anything they seriously want to get at short of fencing them out. We have similar problems with deer which are way less aggressive.
The wild hogs will come to food sources. If there are grubs in your soil, they will till it for the grubs. If they don't find grubs, they will uproot and devour the plant roots. They can indeed be agressive, particularily a sow with little ones. She will attack in defense of her offspring. The wild hog can maim or kill dogs and will eat fawns, ground nesting birds, etc.
I appreciate your not wanting to eat or kill them but I will suggest you find someone there that would be glad to trap them and remove them from your property. They forage thru an area and will eventually move on but they will be back.
In this area, folks would harvest them for the freezer, then give the meat away to their friends, now the population has grown so much they simply shoot and leave them laying. The other hogs are so agressive, they will eat their own.
The rate at which a sow can reproduce is so prolific that a figure I had recently heard was to maintain the current hog population on a piece of property, one must kill 70% of the population.
I am afraid there is nothing to scare them away and if you chose not to harvest them, you need to learn to live with them. The only other population control the wild hogs have will be Cholera and Heaven knows we don't want that as it can cross over to man.
Large dogs can discourage the feral hogs. One of our Great Danes killed a hog one night and they have not been back since. Donkeys and llamas are known to drive them away, but a donkey in the front yard might be only marginally better than a hog! Also you might change your radios to a talk station as a possible repellent.
Taking the idea of the dogs what about a motion sensor that plays a dog bark? Do you think that might fool them?
Try it and let us know how it works. Podster seems very knowledgeable about wild pork and what to do with it. We eat mostly vegetables and meat is just a condiment, take outdoor solar showers for three seasons, are very green and rescue way more animals than we should. Still, we've got game in the freezer and all thanks to our "indigenous" neighbors for keeping the population of wild critters on our property under control. If your animal ethics clash with the possibility of violence towards your porcine intruders you will need to be creative. You've asked a reasonable question but apparently not found an answer you like.
Laurel
I'd kill 'em. they are a plague. Very agressive and a whole different animal than Wilbur. They will destroy your place before they are through.
Would Podster's term "wild hog" be more appropriate here? I know boar were brought to America for sporting and have since crossed with feral hogs but how did boar get to Hawaii? They are smart. Still, I just can't picture them hollowing outriggers along the California coast. lol
My understanding is the boar/hog cross results in a very sought after meat.
The local feral hogs here have sort of reverted to a "wild" type and no longer are identical to the domestic pigs from which they descended. I don't believe they are crossbred though.
The hogs captured in this area are a blend of domestic, Russian boar and Javelina. Their appearances will vary due to genetics.
The boar is an uncasterated male in the swine family although they have been commonly called boar in some locales as in the Russian boar.
They are a wary but intelligent animal having adapted to the feral lifestyle. You may deter a few with a tape of a dog barking but it will not take them long to discover the ruse. In this area when they set live traps to catch them, the trappers will rarely catch more than one batch on that set. The balance of the hogs will stay in the area but refuse to be baited in the trap.
What do you think of this article? http://dnr.wi.gov/org/land/wildlife/publ/wlnotebook/pig.htmI. I thought it very informational. We saw several sows and piglets along the Florida Turnpike two weeks ago. How they get past the barriers is a puzzlement.
Our pig farming friends and former neighbors currently farm in S. GA.. She has a PhD in porcine nutrition and he a Master's in animal ag.. They used to produce at several locations in the Carolinas, but pig farming continues to be shut out in many areas. They had a problem with feral hogs invading their houses and releasing domestic stock.
When referring to boar, I'm speaking of the Spanish, German and Russian introductions. I thought the original boar introduction was from the Spanish and the Javelina was native in the SW and South America. The hogs being grown out for commercial use today are mostly English hybrids according to my knowledge. The PIC (Pig Improvement Company) has been responsible for commercial pork production as we know it today. They were featured in a Michael Pollan documentary. I'd think the hogs in Hawaii were introduced by the Japanese community there and reflect that breeding. Just a guess.
Laurel
The Javelina is a peccary and is not closely related to the pig. They cannot interbreed.
Yes, it is however a stand in for the hog in those areas where it is native...like your part of the country, Porkpal. Are they as problematic as wild hogs elsewhere? I think they share a common diet. Are they as destructive and aggressive?
That is a suprising fact.
Around here the feral hogs are much more destructive and numerous than the Javelinas. They do share a common diet; i.e. everything. The hogs root up a lot more acreage than the Javelinas.
Arghh! why did that link I put up not post? Let me try again. http://dnr.wi.gov/org/land/wildlife/publ/wlnotebook/pig.htm
That is interesting peccary/pig information Porkpal ~ thank you. I must say looking at the photos on the web, a lot of our local pineywoods rooters really favor the peccaries but perhaps it is Russian boar blood. Their teeth are closer to the Russian boar. One link did say the Javelina is not the carnivore that the other hog is.
Interesting link, Maypop, I did not realize feral pigs were a problem so far north. However I disagree with the part where it says there are "a few" feral hogs in Texas. They are a serious problem here.
Yes ~ a critical problem. I've been told there is no county in TX without them. That is amazing considering the large populated metro areas even report problems.
From Jacksonville, Tx which is the home of Dave of Daves Garden fame... http://www.ktre.com/Global/story.asp?S=9514769 Stories like this are popping up all over the state.
In this area, some with less intelligence thought stocking hogs on their hunting leases would give them a year around hunting sport. Little did they know, the hogs would eat all the deers' food sources, even eating fawns and drive the deer out of that area. Now they are wishing them erradicated. The people that are paying the price are the farmers and ranchers that can't raise their crops and livestock without feral hog invasion.
The only way I have seen for people to keep hogs out is a sturdy fence and from growing up on a working farm, I know the fence is only keeping the hog out because he doesn't want to get in. Perhaps if times get lean, the population can eat them instead of Hoover hogs (the armadillo).
Porkpal, how could a feral pig "revert to a wild type" if they have not crossed with Euro boar breeds? Pigs raised for meat today are light years from a wild hog. Like a Papallion compared to a Coon Hound. I'm far from being a hog expert, but have read that most hogs commercially farmed today were genetically bred to stand and be stalled and come from the British Isles. We've got some cool "heirloom" breeds appearing but they are difficult and expensive to acquire. I think the swine flu thing has made importation of new or exotic breeds complicated. What we saw on the side of the FL Turnpike looked nothing like a Pig Improvement Company (PIC) pig, whose origins are in the British Isles and is your common grocery store chop. It's not that we have no wild hogs in N. GA.. Friends who have property backing up to the National Forest, raise heirloom breed cattle and keep mules for protection have still had to kill wild hogs.
Now to meander and soapbox since this is the Homesteading forum, here's a urban and country homesteader's opinion. I'm baffled when we have premium protein food sources staring us in the face and people are going hungry in both city and country. If anyone has cultural, religious or social issues with eating certain foods it should not stand in the way of providing others with limited food resources nourishment and nutrition. So, while we weigh in on the oddness of dining on pestiferous critters such as feral hogs/boar, armadillos, guinea pigs, alligator/croc, and iguanas, people are going without food. These are foods that are considered "gourmet" only a country or two away. Top chefs in this country are starting to feature these foods on their menus and charging a fortune to eat them while most of us are turning green at the thought. Dang if some of us didn't already know tongue and lung were delicious (and used to be cheap) forty years ago!
I've eaten what many would consider unusual meats. And I am one of those that has eaten tongue (don't recall lung). I must say I will never scoff or be repelled by different foods. Sadly, the legality of harvesting meats to give to the needy, poor and nursing homes hits a snag when it is not USDA approved.
I've heard of a case when state wardens had given someone venison and the state was sued as the meat had not been processed (by the recipient) appropriately and food poisoning ensued.
I agree what a shameful state we have come to when the country is so rich in resources and people still go hungry. Just a couple of cents from my view.
Maypop, today's feral hogs probably have resulted from modern pigs that have crossbred with the imported boars and with feral hogs whose ancestors ran wild generations ago. Natural selection favors a rougher animal than the farmyard hog. They just can't breed with Javelinas in spite or their similar appearance.
They certainly represent a vast untapped source of food. Local hunters prize their meat, but government regulations are carried to the ridiculous extreme.
At least Texas hasn't restricted the harvesting of these wild hogs. It is not even necessary to have a state hunting license. There are no restrictions on daytime or night, none on volume of harvest. Only the safety and property aspects are enforced.
When I was a young adult in South Florida, I went to an annual Wild Boar Roast weekend out in the 'Glades. A hunting club had a contract with the state to round-up wild boar as a population control, and once a year they held a BBQ with wild boar on the menu, along with fresh hearts of palm slaw/salad.
Included in the admission fee were swamp buggy and air boat rides, and all sorts of challenging games for the kids (like climbing greases poles for money prizes). I don't remember much else except the grilled wild boar was very tasty.
Probably couldn't happen today unless the boar went immediately to a USDA abattoir. My folks raised a pig every year until the only abattoir left in their entire county shut down, and today it's hard to get just a single animal or three butchered almost anywhere. My closest 'approved' facility is over 50 miles (and 3 counties) away... and if you get a deer in season, you cannot legally give even part of it away unless it's butchered in a USDA facility.
Totally absurd!
Its so they can get money from your meat...they can not let you have free food you know.
Perish the thought!
Well, there's always food stamps and the WIC program. What would you call that?
Darius, I think S. FL. needs to move on to Iguana RU's and roasts. They are supposed to taste like...you know what. I'd be "game" to try them out. My Miami neighbor was telling me three weeks ago that thanks to the DNR, they've gotten the problem under control. I said, "Oh really. Well where did that pair of four foot lizards patrolling the pool screening and grazing on the lawn yesterday come from? When they left the lawn they ambled over to a landscaped island and started mowing down those plants and then one climbed up into a raised planter to lounge in the plantings and take a sun bath." They are so crafty and destructive. It's like Jurassic Park with once domestic and now wild parrots screaming away and those iguanas. Also, we didn't used to have crocodiles in FL and the gators are more frequently wandering out of local canals and rivers and into neighboring lakes. The neighbor two doors down from my Miami house made the news when she found a 'gator in her garage for the second time!
And in regards to the efficiency of a Plott hound, we found this outside the basement door a few days ago. It's the belly up side of a copperhead(less). We couldn't find the head anywhere. She did get bitten, as usual. It's her tenth bite in four summers. We thought she had finally learned. Apparently her hunting drive is too strong. Her face blows up something unbelievable. Looks like she's going to pop! We've decided this will eventually be what kills her.
Yum, roast parrot and bbq'd iguana... as they say in TX, anything is palatable if you barbeque it.
People in this area are amazed to finding alligators moving this far north and farther ~ even north of Shreveport. But TPW still protects them and limits harvesting them.
I think the USDA inspection thing is simply to "justify their existance" but sadly they have managed to put the smaller and local processors out of business. The nearest to us is 75 miles away. Ten years ago all of these small rural towns had a processing plant.
We used to have a Great Dane who was a n active and effective snake killer. He too often got bitten. We discovered that is we gave him penicillin and Dexamethasone (steroid) he was usually fine in a day or two.
Here alligators magically appear in any lake - including those dug by developers to create "waterfront estates" out of farm and ranch land where no water existed before.
After several years of hauling her off to the ER vet (and those incredible bills), she now gets 50mg of Benadryl (two 25 mg tabs) as antihistamine, a Rimydyl as an anti-infammatory and a week of antibiotics. The face is not so bad as long as she doesn't get bitten near the trachea where she could swell and not breath. I'm worried she'll get bitten in the leg where the venom will return to the heart quickly. We think she might be a goldmine for manufacturing anti-venom. lol
My understanding is that copperheads nest in large groups. We keep her in after her morning feeding and again in late afternoon when snakes come out to hunt. Nine of the ten bites have been in late afternoon or early evening. Being a hound, she has that hang-faced look but she looks like a cartoon when those dewlaps are swollen beyond ridiculous. Picture a Ubangi version of a hound dog. Here she is in October '08. The dewlap is obvious, but look at the swelling in her neck. She's actually had both dewlaps hanging down to the middle of her chest and a neck that looks like a small grapefruit is in there.
One of our Danes did get multiple bites in the legs. We treated him with the penicillin and dexamethasone and he was sicker than the snake killer who was normally bitten in the face, but he too was completely fine in two days. The bites have all been from copperheads or water moccasins. I think it might be a different story with a rattlesnake bite.
Agreed about the rattler. They are usually south of us. I've never seen one but some say they have this far north.
Pepper's swelling was down in twenty four hours though the bite is very visible. Her dewlaps are still hanging south. She's becoming very scarred after ten bites. Some of them are long gashes. We have water moccasins here in the local rivers, but not in our pond. There we have black racers. Interestingly, her bites have happened in Atlanta and not here in the country. Also, I like snakes and go out of my way to cohabitate with them. This includes removing a four foot rat snake from the cottage living room while my SO waited outside. He's just conquering his fear of spiders! lol It's a Boston guy thing.