My adult son has two oversized huskies, way oversized, and out hiking here in Florida the dogs came upon a feral
hog and engaged it. By the time my son got close enough to remove one dog from the melee, the hog turned on him
and gashed his leg up pretty good. He needed a bunch of stitches. He is v-e-r-y careful these days.
Your friend needs a rifle not a dog. Any dog single handedly taking on a large feral hog is going to either die or wish it was dead. Our Texas friends all bring their dogs in at night due to the hogs. They have had many problems with them. They have monthly BBQ/shootouts where the guys will stay at one property all night and shoot any and all hogs they can possibly sight. This has done little to put a dent in the population. Apparently those bastards breed like rabbits.
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It is definitely going to depend on the dogâs personality and training⊠but maybe a Leonberger? They can be some pretty rough dogs. Can being the operative word as I do know of one who goes to the dog park frequently that is a big softy. If you can find one to train up, I think that breed could be good.
Absolutely not. Ridgebacks hunted lion in packs, with a hunter who was in charge of actually killing the lion. A single dog is 100% going to die against a boar.
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You only have to check Youtube to answer the OPs question.
Nezzy, you and your friend need to watch Olâ Yeller. Remember the scene where Travis falls into the hogs while ear marking them and Yeller comes to his rescue and is nearly gutted? That is what feral hogs can do.
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I realize how dangerous they are. Was just curious if any breed of dog was bred for this or not. I personally keep my own dogs in the house most of the time, unless i am home, and then they have an acre of fenced yard. ( and a doggy door). My friend was brought up on a farm and believes dogs should stay outside. But after this, i think she has changed her mind.
I bet my dachshunds would think they could.
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Yes, they would. âBold to the point of rashnessâ.
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Like everyone else said, there really isnât a dog that can go one on one with a hog and win. I live in the thick of hog hunting country and know lots of guys who hog hunt almost daily. They use mostly Curr dogs, black-mouthed Curr.
The catch dogs are usually a bully breed mix, but some of the Currs will catch too. One guy uses a Curr and Airedale mix for his hog dogs and he really likes having the Airedale in there, but his catch dog is a PitX.
All of these guys lose a few dogs every year, even with full kevlar kit on the dogs. Basically, the Currs bay the hog and then they send the catch dog in to hold it so that the men can get ahold of it. They donât kill the hogs here usually, just catch, de-sex the males, and let them go. If they need meat, they will kill a sow every now and then.
The best thing is to figure out why the hogs keep coming in. Food? Either remove whatâs bringing them in, or make it so that they donât want to come in. If it is a group of hogs coming in, if you trap one and remove it, the rest wonât come back. Fish and Game often traps feral hogs and they discovered that if they donât get the whole group in the traps, they have to let all of the ones they did trap loose, and start over, or the others will not come back to the bait areas. Fish and Game may come put a trap out for your friend, if she called and reported that the hogs are coming in that close and being aggressive.
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In my area we learned that you could not relocate them. They would just come back no matter how far away you took them. Our county traps them where they have become nuisances and destroys them.
Interesting fact about pigs: They are the only domesticated animal you can release into the wild and they will not only adapt but survive and survive quite well.
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How scary. I hope I never run into those things. Do they not have open season on those things? or are they only out at night. I would be sitting with a rifle and scope. Will they go after foals and ponies? Ugh⊠scary.
Seasons vary by state, and when other seasons are in effect (deer, turkey) other hunters will shoot the dogs used for hog hunting because they think the owners are running deer or birds with them. That tends to narrow down when hog hunting can take place. Iâm not sure about trapping rules/seasons, but I think they are pretty strict in order to protect the welfare of caught game (not cause undo suffering).
Iâm not sure that they would go after foal or pony on their own, but my TB did receive some nasty leg cuts once and the vet said that he felt it was from a wild hog. There are extenuating circumstances though. Namely, my TB is a pest of the worst sort and fearless, so it is completely in the realm of possibility that he was harassing the hog and it had had enough. I have no doubts that he would bite or paw at one if it it werenât bending to his will.
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Well, I did have a friend who was out on a trail ride and encountered a boar. She was headed down the hill and he was headed up and he charged her and her pony. She said her pony never climbed a hill so fast in her life and they ran all the way home. She said the boar chased her for some distance before giving up.
I have wild pigs at my house and they are scary. I donât think I want to get on the wrong side of them any time soon. I will watch them from a distance - a long, long distance.
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This is fascinating. But totally freaky. Are they all feral, as in once they were domestic and then let loose prospered ?
I swear I would go walking with a shot gun if I had them near me. Are they in all states? I know nothing about them.
Not Domesticated. They look like a wild pig. but not sure where they originated.
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Found this article which explains a lot. Wow, if only there was an easy way to round them up for food.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/a-plague-of-pigs-in-texas-73769069/
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Most places do have open season on them. You can kill/trap them any time and as many as you want. They are very destructive to crops and the environment so they are considered an invasive, nuisance animal. They have no natural predators, other than man. Deer hunters generally shoot them on sight. People have been putting out warfarin treated bait to kill them. I think this is now illegal because other wildlife also eat the bait. Some rich guys brought in a helicopter and automatic weapons to hunt them over the hunting property by me. Supposedly they killed 400.
They are the descendants of domesticated hogs that escaped captivity, like mustangs. Back in the day, people free ranged their hogs. They fattened on acorns. In the spring, they ear marked them, in the fall they rounded them up and slaughtered or sold them. Obviously, some escaped and reverted to wild type, aka the razorback. I have heard that rich hunters imported European wild boar and set them loose in the Smokies but I donât know if thatâs true.
Iâve heard of them going after newborn calves so I suppose they could go after ponies or foal. But they mostly eat plant matter, carrion, birdâs eggs, etc.
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In this country, from what Iâve read they were actually imported so wealthy hunters would have something else to hunt. Of course, they did not realize pigs are opportunists and will make the most of their situation and they proliferated. In some areas they have become real nuisances mostly because they have no predators except for the occasional big cat.
The domestic crosses are easy to distinguish from the true ferals. Their heads and bodies are rounder and they come in colors other than black or grey-brown. Ferals are distinctive for their flat looking high spined bodies (thus the term razorback), their shovel like heads and the long hair on them. Itâs rare to see a truly fat feral whereas your domestic crosses will fatten up quite readily.
Itâs interesting to me that at the bottom of my mountain, the domestic crosses are quite prevalent but as you go up the hill and the terrain gets steeper and more rocky, the ferals prevail. I have a group of ferals that comes to visit and they are quite intimidating especially the matriarch. She actually stepped in front of my car once, stopped and wouldnât move, all the while looking at me with her little evil eyes and working her tusks. eek
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Feral hogs are what happens to domestic swine that get loose and breed unfettered for generations. There is no season on them in Texas; state law actually allows hunting them by helicopter. They are a destructive menace in all 254 counties and they are wildly successful reproducers.
As others have noted, Catahoulas, black mouth curs and lacies are bred to hunt them, but this is done with several dogs wearing kevlar vests and thick neck collars. The hunting party also includes a pit or terrier-cross catch dog, and a guy with a rifle. The hogs can live in family groups that run into the dozens. Itâs not feasible to expect one or even two dogs to safely guard a household from a hog or six who want into the family garden.
Your friend might want to call her county agent for advice. She might want to invest in a good shotgun.
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