Man created the growing wild hog problem in the United States of America. In the beginning the wild hogs were few and far between, with manageable litters of pigs. Then man introduced the domestic hog to the wild. When the two combined it was a recipe for disaster. The litters of pigs became larger, as well as the life expectancy of the Wild Hogs increased.
As soon as a piglet reached 10 to 15 pounds, they have very little chance of predators in the wild harming them. The pigs begin to consume hard feed at about 3 weeks of birth and are wined from the sows as soon as 3 months. A young guilt will become mature enough to reproduce within 8 months of birth.
A mature sow may have up to 3 litters of pigs in less than 18 months. You can do the math. Let’s say each litter is 10 pigs, a mature sow will account for over 30 additional pigs within 18 months. Her life expectancy is from 6 to 8 years. Doing the math on the low end, a single sow can produce 120 additional wild hogs in less than 8 years. Out of the 120 offspring, if only 40 percent are female, this number will explode to over 3000 additional wild hogs. You add the mass number to the amount of feed needed to maintain them; they will destroy anything in their path to survive.
Taking one or two a year will not reduce this growing number, in any noticeable manner. In time the other larger animals, ie whitetail deer will migrate to another area to find feed.
At Wilderness Calls we strive to maintain a quality deer management, with the assistance of the Double “D” gravity deer feeders. As the wild hog population expanded, we noticed that the whitetail deer population decreased. The feeder did help to supplement their feed, but deer need a multiple verities of feed to survive. After many hours, days and weeks of research, we developed the Wild Hog Trap Eliminator Gate. It was clear to the staff that taking one or two Wild Hogs would not solve the problem. With the Wild Hog Trap Eliminator Gate, constructed to a large pen, we were able to eliminate a larger number of the Wild Hogs at one time. Controlling the Wild Hog population is a continuous battle, but a battle we are now winning.
