Escaped Pigs!

[catherine]

Help?! I don't know if any of you have any good advice for recapturing escapee pigs, but I surely could use some. Our two 7-8 month old Red Wattle Cross gilts have grown amazingly! We haven't weight taped them, but they must be 300 lbs. It looked like they were coming into heat (the first I've been aware of), as I saw one with what looked to have a slightly swollen vulva on Saturday. Both of them were gone by Sunday afternoon. We've never had any troubles with them before, and have developed a routine of being at the Farm on the weekends, and then one day during the week, with no issues whatsoever for the past 6+ months. The girls are dog friendly, and have gone on walk abouts with us through the cows' pastures and through the woods, but always wanted to return home to their pen with us as evening came on. This is the first time that they've ever broken out and just gone! I can't help but think that a wild boar must have come calling, as there was a 20 odd foot length of their electric poultry fencing down, partly pushed in, and partly pushed out. We've seen signs of some rooting in the pastures and down in our woods along the creek, though not so much as to make us think hordes have been through there. There's also a tree down in our woods that looks like it's been thoroughly scratched upon and muddied. I'd hoped that the girls would have come back by evening, but no such luck, so far. How do breeding boars and sows behave? I gather from my reading that wild boars tend to travel alone, and that herds of wild pigs tend to be mainly mothers and their litters. Would our two gilts potentially go off with a boar, but not form a lasting bond, and potentially return home after the hormones ease up? I've been researching ways to trap wild pigs, as possibly our girls are coming out of the woods and eating at their automatic feeders at night? Any advice will be most appreciated!

We'd thought we had a really workable way to contain the pigs (with the electric poultry netting), and rotate them through their pasture. Now...well, I guess we're going to have to go back to the drawing boards. Admittedly, we've been having some issues with the batteries not holding a charge like they are supposed to, and have sent several back to the manufacturer. But still... the girls never attempted to get out, even once when the kids forgot to turn the fence on and we weren't out there for a number of days! I think we're now going to have to shift over to mains electricity, for more reliability. I can't tell you how bummed we all are. We don't want to contribute to the wild hog population problem. We don't want to lose the pigs we've raised so carefully. We don't want to lose the potential litters and the meat that they represent. We've invested more than 6 months in them and we're just crushed. They are such pretty, sweet pigs...and those hams were looking sooo tasty to us all!

P.S. I'm heading back out now to try to set up a trap using t-posts and hog fencing, baited with their usual sour milky slop, to see if the girls are coming home in the cool of the night. Any other advice/thoughts will be most appreciated!

[Jenn]

I have zero experience with pigs but you might try a marine grade battery for the charger. That's what the big boys use around here.
-Jenn

[Liz]

Oh sheesh!!!
No ideas here, just sympathy.
I hope you can get them trapped and contained.

[catherine]

Hey Jenn...thanks for the suggestion. That marine grade batter is exactly what we've been using with our fences. We've been using what Premier One recommended. The problem was you apparently aren't supposed to let the batteries fully discharge before recharging. We didn't realize that, and it's happened a few times. I'm afraid we've probably ruined 4 batteries. We have now connected the cows up to the power from the equipment barn via an extension cord, and the remaining two batteries are being charged more frequently for the pigs/geese.

Thanks for the sympathy, Liz. My DH and I are just so terribly bummed about this loss. He's afraid that the girls were so tame that they probably just walked right up to someone who now thinks that there really IS a God who loves him...and is showing it with a 600 lb. pork present for Father's Day! Sigh. Meanwhile, my sweet man has an empty smoker and an empty freezer, when he was SO looking forward to breaking them in...and tasting the profits!

The other sad bit is that the 3 co-breeders of Red Wattles (Jesse, Marian Van Beever and Bud Nichols) up in Missouri are despirately looking for a third strain of RW to complement their two lines (Wengler and Timberline). Marian just told me that our two gilts are crosses out of the only other line that they have located! THAT is one reason she'd suggested that we NOT butcher the girls, but breed them! Wish she'd told me that before! Hopefully, they and/or we will be able to get pure bred piglets for the original source. I'll let you know.

Anyway, it looks like we're going to have to start over, unless by some miracle, our girls reappear...but each passing day makes it less likely that they will, I fear. So, I'll let you know what we discover. In the meantime, the geese seem lost without their neighbor pigs. They have had their own pen all along, but it's been run off the same battery with the pigs, so they've been side by side. They've not been big wanderers, but this evening when we went to close them in their pen, they were no where to be found! The kids and I almost freaked. Not another loss?! We looked all through the woods near their pen, but nothing. They'd never been big on straying far, esp. in the evenings. When we couldn't find them anywhere, we headed up to the house and asked DH if he'd seen them before he'd come in from mowing. Oh, ya, says he! They are up in the top pasture with the cows! What??? They were about 5 times further away than I'd EVER seen them go before. They were hanging out with the cows by their water trough. I think they were lonely! The cows didn't know what to make of these big birds "hogging" all the room around their water. We started walking behind them, and the geese headed straight home. Gee...wish I'd had a camera with me as my Sarah made a really cute Goose Girl! So...guess the geese, too, will be thrilled to see the pig girls, if and when they return, and will be happy if we get them some new neighbors, if they don't! Either way, I think the cows want their water to be poultry free! lol

[Jenn]

I'm sorry, I guess I was assuming you were using solar. You know what they when you assume...
What I have been told is a lot of solar chargers are lame. So what people do is get a marine battery and keep it charged with a solar panel, or get a solar charger and use the marine battery as back up. I think you get more solar power with a generic panel than with a solar charger system.
-Jenn

[catherine]

Ya, we got the marine battery and had a solar charger on it as well. We were quite disappointed that the charger didn't seem to keep them powered more than about 3 weeks or so. So, we'd still pull and charge the battery in the house...but apparently we weren't doing it often enough to prevent damage to the batteries! Argh. We sure didn't see anything about that on the literature that came with the batteries! So, now we're rotating the batteries every weekend and recharging. Other than that...it's called...extension cords to the rescue! lol. Thank, Jenn.

[Mitra]

My stomache seized at the title of the thread! I know what a horrible feeling it is when they vanish like that. I only dealt with a pig who vanished for a few hours but it was no fun - I was just sick about it.

Unless someone is holding them, I think they will be back. I'd go put up "Lost Pig" signs in case someone might have seen them. I'd also alert the Sheriff and the animal control - I don't remember how rural you are but that's what I would do here.
Once they aren't in heat (3 days?) I think you should expect to see them trying to get back into their area.

When I lost Sophie for a few hours ( I'd only had her for less than 24hrs), I called Jessika to see what steps I could take to get her home. This was after I'd discovered that a neighbor about 1/2 mile away had seen her at dusk! And it was hunting season. I couldn't imagine she'd be able to find her way back to a place she'd been but a few hours. Jessika was pretty sure she'd be back, especially to be reunited with her sister. She was absolutely right. Since then, when one or both have gotten out, they do eventually want to be back in their pen because that's where the food troughs are.

If they've been bred by these wild boars - that'll make for some interesting litters. I would think you'd be able to raise some great feeder pigs from that cross.

I'm lighting a candle for the girls to come home.

[mrskk]

Oh, Catherine! I'm so sorry - I hope your girls come back home soon.

We've only had our piggies for about 6 weeks, but I would be heartbroken if they disappeared. We're really looking forward to that pork, too.

Keep us updated.

[Christine]

Good luck with their return. I'd know that I'd be sick with worry if my guys headed for the hills.

Just one thing: Don't tell Hallie and Winston about this. I don't need to be chasing pigs. Cows and horses are bad enough.

Kip

[catherine]

Sigh. Well, still no sign of the girls. We've been setting out slops in our "open" trap. Obviously, it's been disappearing. However, we laced the pig feeders with a handful of kelp, just so we could see if they'd been fed from, figuring that only a pig snout would easily open those drop down type doors, and it doesn't look like our girls have been there. All the prints and rooting signs we've seen are now looking older, so I don't think they've been in the pasture or ponds. The creek appears to be drying up, and there's no flow anymore, so our ponds may become more attractive to wildlife soon.

We'll close the trap tomorrow to see if we can catch whatever's been feeding at our slop pail, but I think it's just the local predators, plus some BIG crows that we startled from the pig and goose area, this evening (I think they're also stealing feed from the goose feeder!). DH has been concerned about what we will do if we catch a wild pig or two, instead of our girls. The kids and I are all for butchering whatever we find...but I think DH is a bit appalled at the idea, and is worried about how we'd chill the meat down. The kids and I are figuring that we'd use a kitchen knife to gut and a sawzall to quarter a wild pig, and put it in ice chests, if worse comes to worse.

I'm still hopeful that our girls are around, but every day that passes makes me fear that for some reason they can't come back, as I really think they would if they could. I was dreaming about them last night. Gee, the place just doesn't seem the same without them! And yes, the geese are still upset by the pigs departure. They roamed around by the chicken house all afternoon, but when evening came they headed up to the cow's pasture, again. They really are either lonely, or feeling insecure, without large animal neighbors. I think we'll move them up to the "crawfish pond" near the cows tomorrow, and hope they feel more at ease.

I must admit that I feel much better after having gone back to Walter Jeffries blog (sugarmtnfarm.com/blog/2008/06/poultry-netting-for-pigs.html) and seen how he, too, uses electified poultry netting to keep his pigs tilling in his garden area. He uses other arrangements of electric fencing as well, elsewhere on his place, but he seems quite confident about the poultry netting...and he makes his living raising pigs! I guess I wasn't as foolish as I was beginning to think I was, afterall. Now, to figure out how to prevent this loss from happening again with future pigs! DH wants to install hog wire all around the farm, so that if pigs get out again, they won't be able to get off the place. Yeah...right. That's 1 solid mile of fencing through loads of heavy woods, with a deep creek bed running through the middle. I don't think the fencing would keep determined pigs in, or predators out, but then again, I guess it couldn't hurt...well, couldn't hurt anyone but us trying to put it in! lol.

Thanks for all your concern and well wishing. I'll be sure to let you know what happens. C.

[larae]

I don't think your pigs 'can't' come back....pigs can go feral pretty quickly especially when they join up with band of 'wild' pigs. It doesn't mean they won't wander thru there at some point...however they are just doing what pigs do.

From what you have said it sounds like they were coming into heat and a 'wild' band with a boar came thru and they joined up with them. We have alot of feral pigs here in SW MO and the hog farmers can tell you all sorts of stories about their domestic pigs escaping with or being broken out of their pens by a wild boar.

It's pretty hard to track them down, although there are guys out there that do that sort of thing if you want to go to that length.

Keep in mind that your fence needs to have a pretty hot charge to deter a wild boar trying to get to gilts/sows in heat. Might be a better idea to have double fencing kinda like what your husband is talking about....at least it will slow them down.


LaRae

[catherine]

Woah, thanks LaRae. I'd love to hear some of those old timers' stories! I was feeling like a bad pig mama, not having enough protection for our girls, but then everyone I've look at that's doing pastured pork is using exactly what we are. The breeder I was talking to mentioned that actually having your own boar on site, and LGDs too I'm sure, are what really seem to help their girls stay home. Anyway, the way the electric poultry netting was pushed both in and out made it look like possibly a boar did break in, and the girls rushed out. I agree with you, though...for future pigs, I think a double fencing system of some sort might be in order, just for insurance.

We've set a baited trap, but haven't closed it up yet, wanting to let whatever get used to the trap being a "safe place" from which to eat. Also, my DH is a bit freaked at the thought of possibly catching a large wild pig! It's one thing recapturing our tame girls. It's another thing entirely to be confronted with HOGZILLA! Someone broke in and stole my DH's guns a while back, so he's researching a replacement, so he can kill whatever we might find in the trap, once we set it. Hey...it's as good an excuse as any to buy a new gun, right? lol. Any suggestions on what kind would be best? My DS is kinda excited about the whole proposal. He thinks that if we can figure out trapping wild hogs, we can have a steady supply of definitely naturally fed pork! lol. We'll see.

Speaking of eating wild pork...anyone know about the parasite issue? Would it be safe enough to eat? I guess just the standard...cook thoroughly? I'm sure hunters wouldn't hesitate. However, would it be wise to try to pen such a wild pig and feed it some wormers and maybe fatten it up a bit? Just wondering if anyone out there has any experience hunting wild boar and eating it? Thanks guys.

[larae]

Well here's the thing about 'wild boar'. At least here the vast majority if not all the wild pigs are from domestic stock. I'm sure they have a little true feral mixed in but it would have to be pretty diluted. When pig prices get bad or people can't afford to feed them it's not uncommon for people to just turn their pigs loose.

Now a few years ago a pig hunting club got into trouble in MO because they actually released wild pigs so they could have a population to hunt. In MO wild pigs are considered feral and a danger to wildlife and livestock/agriculture and can be shot on sight...in fact the conservation dept practically say you have to shoot them if you see them.

Now down in TX you may really have 'wild boar'. You should check with the locals etc about that.

As I understand it anyone who handles/processes wild boar/pig should wear heavy latex type gloves to avoid parasite infection or diseases and the meat needs to be cooked very well to avoid disease/parasites.

I've eaten wild boar and found it to be very tasty, I'd eat it again anytime. But before I went to processing one I think I'd do some research to see if the concerns are real or just typical everything that isn't pasturized will kill you mantra some people carry on about.

If you do catch one in a trap you can just shoot it like you would any pig. I've seen pigs shot with handguns and a .22 ...I think the key is to shoot them in the right place, which is as I understand it you kinda make an X on the forehead just above the eyes and shoot there but I'd check to make sure before I actually shot one.

I do know some of the locals here have caught wild pigs and then penned them and fattened them for slaughter but no idea if they wormed them or not.

A few years ago some local farmers were out working cattle and scared up a sow with piglets. They roped the sow and drug her into a stock trailer and caught a few of the piglets (dogs got a couple of them) and brought them by the local store to show them off <G>....they were gonna take them home and fatten them up to eat.

She did look somewhat feral but I doubt she was more than one generation.


LaRae

[catherine]

Thanks, LaRae! Good info. I read about one hunter getting the most amazing numbers of fleas on himself while butchering out a feral hog. Forewarned is forearmed. Most of the "wild" ones are escaped domestics? Wow. Well, Red Wattle are supposed to top 1000 when fully mature...so we actually MIGHT see Hogzilla around here in a generation or two, if we don't manage to reacquire our pig girls! Yikes! I know they used to set the pigs loose to fend for themselves, back in the old days. Guess they harvested their pork with "lead poisoning", too.

[larae]

Yes at least here, most 'wild' ones are escaped domestics or descend from them.

6 or 7 years ago a neighbor down the road shot a big sow and a younger boar. You could of put a saddle on the sow. I'm pretty sure that real feral/wild sows don't get to that size (I'm thinking of the razorbacks and wild pigs in TX I've seen and comparing)....and domestic pigs have different features too. Their bodies are different. My husband almost hit one of the 'feral' hogs a few years ago, big black one ran right across the road.

They are hard to hunt because they move continuously but every now and then someone gets one and takes a pic, then puts it in the paper or down at a local store.

The 'old days' are still here <G> people still set hogs loose to fatten. I would imagine they did use lead, very effective.

LaRae

[dvacek]

Hi Catherine,

I grew up eating wild pigs and deer. Not sure about the flea problem b/c we hunted them in the winter.

One thing my dad has always one to help the meat bleed out completely is to dust the meat with baking soda, ice down in an ice chest, then pour a gallon of vinegar on top of the ice. We would keep the meat on ice for 3-4 days then debone.

Hope this helps!!

Any sign of your girls??? Said a prayer for ya.

-Dustin

[catherine]

Thanks, Dustin. That was very thoughtful of you to say a prayer for us. Nope, no signs yet. However, I keep hearing from the "old timers" not to give up all hope yet. They "may" still return. Sigh.

OH, by the way...welcome to the KFC forums!!! You will fit right in here! Loads of helpful people, just like you! About your Dad's tricks with baking soda, ice and vinegar...woah, I've never heard of doing all of that, but then I didn't grow up in a hunting family. Can you, or anyone, explain what all that does to help bleed out and prepare a carcass? I guess I just thought to hang the carcass for a good bleed, and then ice it down. I'm really interested in what all the rest of this does.

In the meantime, we are working on getting replacement piglets. We've really, really enjoyed the Red Wattle temperments and the growth abilities of our gilts (approximately 300 lbs. in 8 months), and so we're trying to get more. However, they are stinking rare. All we've managed to come up with are a pair of boars, this time. Gee...all our current problems could have been solved by having our own "home boys" while we still had the girls...and now we'll have the reverse? Yikes! Actually, we're hoping to get these two baby boys now, and then a pair of baby girls come the Fall. So, hopefully, we'll be able to put one at least one boy in the freezer in time for Thanksgiving, and then have a threesome for future breeding, so we don't have to go to all this trouble each time we want a pair of freezer pigs! I don't think my DH is completely sold on this whole idea, by the by. It's sort of becoming my project. He's into the pair of freezer pigs for 6 months kinda set up, with reason. Pray for me if I do end up doing this, please? Breeding pigs...oh wow...never thought I'd be doing THAT, somehow!

[piper]

Darn it. I saw you had posted and thought maybe the girls were back. I had a new little feeder pig disappear for 24 hours once. No other pigs around so he was glad to get back with the gang.

[dvacek]

Thanks for the welcome Catherine! I'm not exactly sure what the baking soda/vinegar combo does for the meat, but my dad swears by it. We would also drain the water and add ice daily, which I think has the biggest effect.

I no longer hunt, but it would be interesting to do a side by side comparison.

Still hoping for a safe return of the girls!

-Dustin