Category: Hog Hunting

Fence to Keep Hogs Out & Off Land

Feral hogs are a real nuisance for landowners in Texas and beyond. However, landowners can fence to keep hogs out of areas and off of their land. Fencing can work when done correctly. Feral hogs are a non-native species and considered one of the most destructive invasive terrestrial vertebrates in North America, so it must be done right in order to work.

Wild hogs cause substantial damage to agricultural operations, natural resources, and native ecosystems. They also have negative impacts on human and animal health. Feral pigs cost landowners direct and indirect losses. In turn, lost agricultural production ends up costing consumers, too.

How to Fence to Keep Hogs Out

When it comes to choosing the best type of fence to keep hogs out of an area, there are a few factors to consider. Hogs are known to be quite strong and persistent, so the fence needs to be sturdy and well-designed. Here are some options to consider:

1. Woven Wire Fence: A woven wire fence with small openings (4 inches or less) can be effective fence to keep hogs out. This type of fence is durable and can withstand the pressure exerted by hogs. This type of fence is commonly used around agricultural fields and pastures.
2. Electric Fence: An electric fence can be effective, especially if it’s properly designed and installed. Electric fences deliver a shock to hogs when they come in contact with the wire, discouraging them from trying to breach the fence. Multiple strands of electric wire are usually necessary to ensure effectiveness.
3. Chain Link Fence: A chain link fence with small openings can also be a viable option. Hogs might have difficulty squeezing through the openings, especially if the fence is tall enough and properly secured to the ground.
4. Panel or Pipe Fence: Heavy-duty panels or pipes can create a strong barrier against hogs. These types of fences are quite sturdy and can resist the force that hogs might exert.
5. Height and Depth: The fence should ideally be at least 4 to 5 feet high to prevent hogs from easily jumping over it. Additionally, burying the bottom of the fence a foot or more below the surface can prevent hogs from digging underneath.
6. Concrete or Wood Barrier: Building a concrete or wood barrier around the perimeter can also work effectively. Just make sure it’s sturdy and tall enough to deter the hogs.
7. Addition of Deterrents: In some cases, adding scent deterrents or visual barriers like reflective tape or flags can help enhance the effectiveness of the fence.

Considerations and Fencing for Feral Hogs

Regardless of the type of fence you choose, proper installation is crucial. Ensure that the fence is securely anchored to the ground, and regularly inspect and maintain it to address any potential weak points. Keep in mind that no fence is entirely foolproof, as hogs can be determined and clever.

Therefore, using a combination of strategies might yield the best results in preventing hogs from entering a specific area. Consulting with local experts or wildlife professionals can also provide valuable insights tailored to your specific situation. However, a feral hog control and exclusion program should include properly constructed fencing.

Cost Share for Hog Fencing

At the time of writing, there is a cost-share program available for landowners interested in fencing to exclude the movement of wild hogs. On behalf of the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), the National Association of Conservation Districts (NACD) will manage and administer a $7.5 million cost-share program that incentivizes landowners and operators to install or repair perimeter fencing to restrict feral hogs access and impacts to land. More information about the program can be found on the NACD website. Applications must be submitted no later than October 13, 2023 at 11:59 p.m. ET.

Unfortunately, there are no easy answers when it comes to dealing with feral hogs. Fencing is effective at excluding hogs from property, but the exact design depends on location-specific details. If you do choose to fence to keep hogs out, ensure that you construct it right, and right from the start.

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Feral hogs are bad news. Texas farmers and ranchers lose billions of dollars in agricultural products each year. Wild hogs are not native, but feral hogs kill native wildlife and compete for habitat and space. In short, nobody likes feral hogs.

But, unfortunately, it gets worse. It’s now reported that feral hogs are responsible for the death of a Texas woman. How did feral hogs kill a woman on her way to work?

Feral Hogs Kill Woman Outside Home

Killer Hogs?

Christine Rollins drove her white sedan toward the rural Texas home and parked /it just a few steps away from the front door. She got out of the car, locked it and headed toward the house where she worked as a caretaker for an older couple.

Instead of making her way in the home, according to the authorities who are now investigating her death, she was attacked by a herd of feral hogs before she could make the short walk.

Hog attacks are rare in Texas and elsewhere, but the scene was so harrowing that investigators could find no other explanation for Ms. Rollins’s death early Sunday morning in Anahuac, about 50 miles east of Houston. It was just the fifth deadly feral hog attack documented in the United States in nearly two centuries, according to one study.

Feral Hogs Kill: Deadly Scene in Anahuac

“It was like nothing we’d ever seen,” Sheriff Brian C. Hawthorne of Chambers County said in an interview on Tuesday, the day after a medical examiner ruled the cause of death as “exsanguination due to feral hog assault,” using a medical term for severe blood loss.

One of the homeowners went to check on why Ms. Rollins, 59, had not come inside at her usual time and discovered her body on a small patch of grass.

Ms. Rollins was one of three caregivers who worked 12-to-14-hour shifts looking after the husband, 84, and wife, 79, who suffer from memory loss. She was known for her compassion, the sheriff said, relaying a story of when Ms. Rollins drove over from another town to feed the couple when the wife got sick.

Ms. Rollins’s son-in-law told a local television station that the family had been preparing for her 60th birthday, which falls on Christmas.

Sheriff Hawthorne said it was clear from her injuries that Ms. Rollins had fought back against the hogs. He said it was impossible to know exactly how many had attacked her, but that there had been more than one, based on the varying sizes of her bite wounds.

Feral Hogs Kill in Texas

There are millions of wild hogs in Texas, though they are rarely violent toward humans. Texans mostly encounter them when the animals have uprooted a flower bed or damaged crops. Unlike domesticated pigs, feral hogs can become aggressive if they feel trapped, or if a female hog is defending her offspring. Most weigh about 200 pounds, though they can grow to more than 500.

“Feral pigs will lunge at you and attack you” if they perceive a threat, said John J. McGlone, a professor of animal behavior at Texas Tech University who has studied feral and domestic hogs.

There were about 100 documented attacks by feral hogs on humans in the United States between 1825 and 2012, four of which were fatal, according to a 2013 study. The most recent of those was also in Texas, in 1996.

Three of the four fatal attacks were by pigs wounded by hunters. But feral hog attacks in urban and suburban areas have increased since the mid-1990s, said John J. Mayer, the study’s author. He warned that many attacks likely go unreported, especially in rural regions.

Sheriff Hawthorne said the tragedy was one of the worst he had seen in his 35-year career. He said that as developers build houses in rural areas, more wild hogs are coming into contact with people. But the only other hog attack he had worked on was when one had attacked a pet cat.

“Feral hogs are just that: They’re feral, they’re wild and they roam,” he said. “One minute they’re tearing up the land on one ranch, the next minute they’re tearing up the ranch in the town over.”

Biology of Feral Hogs

Feral hogs descended from European wild boars, which were first brought to Texas in the 1500s and sometimes bred with domesticated pigs, Professor McGlone said. They mostly eat vegetation but are omnivorous, and can briefly run at speeds up to 30 m.p.h.

The animals tend to move in darkness to stay cool, which may have been why Ms. Rollins encountered them early in the morning. Adult males travel alone, Professor McGlone said, but juvenile males sometimes travel in pairs, and adult females travel in herds with one another and their young, sometimes numbering up to 50.

Some quick facts on feral hogs:

• Feral hogs are found in 38 states
• There are 4-5 million hogs in the U.S.
• About half of those are found in Texas
• Females are reproductive at 8-10 months
• Gestation is about 115 days
• 70% of the herd must be killed annually to keep the wild hog population from growing

Feral Hogs Kill, So Kill Them

Feral hogs are not native to Texas and not protected. Wild hogs can be hunted year-round in the state and neither hunters nor landowners need a hunting license.

Hogs are known to consume the nests of ground nesting birds such as quail, turkey and countless songbirds. Feral swine have also been documented to consume snakes, other reptiles and amphibians and white-tailed deer fawns.

Research is currently being conducted that would develop a feral hog toxicant that could be used to control feral hog populations in North America.

It’s not all hot air. Soon hunters in Texas can literally “make it rain” onto herds of feral hogs using the comfort and stealth that hot air balloons provide. Texas lawmakers have approved the hunting of feral hogs and coyotes from hot air balloons. Boom!

Feral hogs numbers have increased dramatically over the past few decades, and it seems lawmakers will stop at nothing to provide hunters with opportunities to control the non-native, rooting machines that are feral hogs. Hunting is already open year-round and their are zero bag limits. Hunt on.

Texas’ growing hog population causes millions of dollars worth of damage to agricultural crops every year. Texas has an estimated 3 million feral hogs. The high breeding rate of wild pigs and a lack of natural predators has seen feral hog numbers skyrocket. With hog numbers going up, so should the hunters.

Texas already allows the shooting of feral hogs from helicopters, but in addition to be costly, many say it is unsuccessful because the aircraft often scare the hogs out of shooting range. Hot air balloons are quieter and offer a more stable shooting platform, which understandably would be better for “sniper-like” hog hunting.

Before hunters can take to they sky for bacon to fry, the bill does require the state to license hot air balloon hunting. But with the bill out of the state congress and house, it now goes to Texas Governor Greg Abbott for his consideration. And in Texas, you know he’s gonna sign it like it’s hot… air balloon.

READ: Texas Investigates New Ways to Control Feral Hogs

Toxicants for controlling feral hog populations may soon be a reality. Each year in the US, wild and ever-increasing hog populations are causing millions of dollars in damage on farms, ranches and even suburban settings. Neither hog hunting nor trapping has been able to control feral hog numbers. An approved toxicant has the best chance at being successful, in my opinion.

What land owners and managers need is exactly what a toxicant can provide, a solution that works more or less passively that is highly effective at eliminating large numbers of feral hogs. Toxicants do work. The biggest problem with toxicants is ensuring that they are only ingested by only unwanted, feral hogs. There is also problems with potential carryover into the human food chain should “toxic” hogs be shot, butchered and consumed. The latter is not a problem with sodium nitrite, but definitely an issue with warfarin.

Source: “Two toxicants that have previously been used in Australia to poison feral hogs are being considered for use in the U.S.

The United States Department of Agriculture Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service is working with researchers to register and approve sodium nitrite. Sodium nitrite is used in hog poison in Australia and is used as a food preservative in the U.S. (ironically in bacon). It causes methemoglobinemia in hogs, resulting in rapid depletion of oxygen to the brain and vital organs. Death occurs within 1.5 hours in feral hogs.

Kaput® is a warfarin-based bait that was eventually banned in Australia. Warfarin is a blood thinner that hogs are very susceptible to, dying within a few days of receiving a lethal dose. Texas Department of Agriculture (TDA) in collaboration with Scimetrics Ltd. Corporation worked to develop Kaput®. Kaput® has an Enviromental Protection Agency (EPA)-approved label and is currently being considered for approval in several states. Immediately following TDA approval of Kaput® for restricted use in the state of Texas, legal action followed citing concerns to human health. Kaput® says they will have a commercial product available in May-June 2017 if its use is legal in any states.

Toxicants will not be the silver bullet landowners are looking for, but it will be another tool in the war on hogs. The Kaput® label has very specific protocols for habituating hogs with a mandatory feeder, disposing of carcasses, grazing restrictions and reporting of non-target kills. It will be extremely important for applicators of toxic baits to adhere to all requirements in any label approved by the EPA as well as any special restrictions imposed by a state. Misuse of any approved toxicant can result in damage to natural resources and result in the loss of a new tool for hog control.”

In short, even using toxicants to control feral hogs is not a one-and-done deal, but based on the paragraphs above it appears baits formulated with warfarin have the potential for a number of issues both before and after baits have been ingested by wild pigs. At this point, it seems sodium nitrite may be the better option since the potential to harm us, humans, seems lower, but it seems more research is warranted.

It’s been said that there is no silver bullet for feral hog control, but I think an effective toxicant has the opportunity to be just that. Most hog gurus site that at least 70 percent of the hog population must be controlled annually to prevent an increase in hog numbers. My “back of a napkin” math makes me think that is possible, even if I don’t know exactly which toxicant is right for the job.

Kaput Feral Hog Bait has pulled from Texas before even a single pig (or anything else) was harmed. Scimetrics Ltd. Corporation (SLC) announced yesterday that it has withdrawn its registration of Kaput Feral Hog Bait in the state of Texas.

SLC announced, “We have received tremendous support from farmers and ranchers in the State of Texas, and have empathy for the environmental devastation, endangered species predation, and crop damage being inflicted there by a non-native animal. However, under the threat of many lawsuits, our family owned company cannot at this time risk the disruption of our business and continue to compete with special interests in Texas that have larger resources to sustain a lengthy legal battle.”

Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller was dismayed over the decision by the maker of Kaput Feral Hog Bait to remove the product from use in the state.

“As Texas Agriculture Commissioner, I am disappointed that landowners, farmers and ranchers will lose this tool to fight back against the growing economic threat of feral hogs. Unfortunately, it seems that once again the hard working folks who turn the dirt and work from sunup to sundown have fallen victim to lawyers, environmental radicals and the misinformed. Once again, politically correct urban media hacks and naysayers win out against the rural folks who produce the food and fiber everyone needs.”

The Kaput Feral Hog Bait label included warfarin and had been approved by the U.S. EPA, which requires meeting stringent testing and documentation requirements. To meet these high standards, many years of work have gone into developing and proving the safety and effectiveness of Kaput Feral Hog Bait.

SLC had hoped to provide this valuable new resource to the farmers of Texas, whose crops and land have been devastated by the estimated 2.5 million feral hogs in the state. The company also hoped to alleviate the risk posed by the many diseases these hogs carry being transmitted to both the livestock and the food supply of Texas, by offering an alternative solution to current programs that cannot keep up with the quickly growing feral hog population.

It appears feral hogs in Texas are no longer on notice. SLC ended its announcement to pull Kaput from Texas with, “Unfortunately, we have discontinued our attempts to provide this resource in Texas at this time. We are grateful for the support we have received from the agricultural community of Texas.”

Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller will be announcing approval of a major new weapon in the ongoing war against feral hogs in Texas. Commissioner Miller has approved a rule change in the Texas Administrative Code (TAC) that classifies a new warfarin-based product as a state-limited-use pesticide for control of feral hogs.

State-limited-use pesticides may only be bought and used by a licensed applicator or someone under the direct supervision of a licensed applicator. The pesticide, “Kaput Feral Hog Lure,” is the first toxicant to be listed specifically for use in controlling the feral hog population.

“Wild hogs have caused extensive damage to Texas lands and loss of income for many, many years,” Commissioner Miller said. “I am pleased to announce that the ‘feral hog apocalypse’ may be within Texans’ reach with the introduction of Kaput’s hog lure.”

Introducing warfarin as the first pesticide available to control the feral hog population is significant because it gives agriculture producers and landowners in Texas a new weapon in the fight against feral hogs with minimal risk to other animals.

Using Warfarin for Feral Hogs

The bait would be limited to private use, and according to the Texas Department of Agriculture department the pesticide, which was approved by the Environmental Protection Agency in January, would be classified as “State Limited Use.” This classification would require distributors to hold a pesticide dealer’s license, according to the agriculture department. Buying it would also require a person to be licensed as a pesticide applicator “or under the direct supervision of a licensed applicator.”

According to the release, the TDA chose to regulate the pesticide in this way to “address the risk of inadvertent human consumption of warfarin-exposed hogs and the risk of potential secondary exposure of non-target animals.”

The risks have drawn concerns from hunters and natural resource professionals. Concern for the ecosystem also prompted the Texas Hog Hunters Association to create a petition against the use of the pesticide. Eydin Hansen, the vice president of the association, said, “If a hog dies, what eats it? Coyotes, buzzards … we’re going to affect possibly the whole ecosystem.”

Controlling Feral Hogs

There is no doubt feral hogs are a real problem in Texas. Hogs numbers have continued to increase in the face of year-round hunting, relentless trapping, and aerial-helicopter hunting. “They’re so prolific, you can’t hardly keep them in check,” says Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller. “This is going to be the hog apocalypse, if you like: If you want them gone, this will get them gone.”

He also says that “Kaput Feral Hog Lure,” does not pose much danger to other animals because hogs are especially vulnerable to warfarin, and it would take higher doses than the bait contains to harm most other creatures. A Texas Hog Hunters Association spokesman, however, says they oppose the move and would rather stick to hunting and trapping. He’s stated that he’s worried about the risk of feeding poisoned pork to his family, though Miller says that in a “dead giveaway,” the poison will turn hog fat bright blue.

Why can’t we just feed those hungry hogs bacon? It turns out a popular meat preservative works quite well at killing hogs, too.