Mulefoot Hog #4

[Double Naught Spy]

It had been a slow night, cold and windy. I had the blind buttoned up to keep out the wind and would peek out the windows every few minutes to scan for hogs. During this time, I received a phone call about a fairly important matter. I had told the guy I was free to talk, FOUR hours before he called me back, LOL. Since nothing was going on, I decided to chat with him. Of course, that is when the hog showed up...

[ame]https://youtu.be/ydEiJQ5DHd8[/ame]

Feral mulefoot hogs are pretty rare. This was a nice hog to take, sort of like an early Christmas present.

 

[scrmblr1982cj8]

Another nice video DNS!

I love how you are so nonchalant on the phone when you have a hog in sight!

 

[long450]

Thanks for sharing! That Grendel and the 123 SST are a great set up for hogs , coyotes and deer.

 

[Double Naught Spy]

Another nice video DNS!

I love how you are so nonchalant on the phone when you have a hog in sight!

You know, I had in my ear buds and we had been chatting for a while. As it was cold and the wind was blowing, I was still opening up each window and peeking out every couple of minutes to see if anything was going on. This time around, I just happened see a hog. The funny thing was that when I told Bob that I was just about to shoot (he is a hunter), I thought he would be more excited about it and would wait for it to happen, but he just went right back to the story he was telling me, LOL.

 

[smokinjoess]

great vid thanks !

 

[mustang58]

Throw-back to original Russian Wild Boar?

 

[WildRose]

Throw-back to original Russian Wild Boar?

Actually they are a unique domestic breed established back in the 1880's-90's.

The "Mule Foot" comes from a gene mutation and so it could either be a naturally occurring mutation popping up occasionally or there's some of them that were at some point turned loose. "Feral" just means that it's a domesticated animal that has gone back to and survived in the wild.

 

[Double Naught Spy]

Actually they are a unique domestic breed established back in the 1880's-90's.

The "Mule Foot" comes from a gene mutation and so it could either be a naturally occurring mutation popping up occasionally or there's some of them that were at some point turned loose. "Feral" just means that it's a domesticated animal that has gone back to and survived in the wild.

Mulefootedness does come from a mutation, one that is hereditary, hence the ability to selectively breed these hogs into a "breed," though they have been documented worldwide and into antiquity through archaeological specimens and documented by Aristotle in Greece. The condition does occur in the European (aka "Russian") boar population, but this isn't a throwback.

The breeding came about, in part, because mulefooted hogs did not suffer foot/hoof rot that regular, cloven hooved hogs suffered after being in wet conditions for prolonged periods of time, such as muddy pens. Apparently, their resistance to this led to a number of other beliefs that mulefooted hogs were resistant to cholera and other diseases, which was purely hogwash. They were reported to mature faster, be less expensive to raise, be good milk producers and good sucklers. Not only that, but their meat was considered to be superior and by the 1930s, there were hundreds of registered breeders. The need for such artisanal pork declined with the rise of the beef industry and now the breed is nearly extinct, considered to be a heritage breed.

As for ferals being domestic hogs turned loose, that is certainly one way hogs can become feral, but you have to understand that since colonial times, farmers have allowed hogs to free-range. Jamestown had to build a palisade, not to keep out Native Americans, but to keep out the feral hogs. https://books.google.com/books?id=aGFTAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA282&lpg=PA282&dq=jamestown+overrun+hogs&source=bl&ots=_yZtd55Dm_&sig=RAj6AzOn8NMLRWZheqYHrmL4FOM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=2Kc2UYiwLK762AWR54HwBw#v=onepage&q=jamestown%20overrun%20hogs&f=false

I know that free ranging was still ongoing in the 1940s when my father was a boy. He would turn out the pigs to the bottoms in the morning and whistle them up in the evenings. Sometimes he would get all the pigs back. Sometimes he would get a few extra. Sometimes he would be down a few. Some of the extra were the neighbors' hogs. Some never came back.

Of course, hogs may become feral by simply escaping, which is a common problem. We have all seen it. Livestock gets out from time to time.

 

[WildRose]

Mulefootedness does come from a mutation, one that is hereditary, hence the ability to selectively breed these hogs into a "breed," though they have been documented worldwide and into antiquity through archaeological specimens and documented by Aristotle in Greece. The condition does occur in the European (aka "Russian") boar population, but this isn't a throwback.

The breeding came about, in part, because mulefooted hogs did not suffer foot/hoof rot that regular, cloven hooved hogs suffered after being in wet conditions for prolonged periods of time, such as muddy pens. Apparently, their resistance to this led to a number of other beliefs that mulefooted hogs were resistant to cholera and other diseases, which was purely hogwash. They were reported to mature faster, be less expensive to raise, be good milk producers and good sucklers. Not only that, but their meat was considered to be superior and by the 1930s, there were hundreds of registered breeders. The need for such artisanal pork declined with the rise of the beef industry and now the breed is nearly extinct, considered to be a heritage breed.

As for ferals being domestic hogs turned loose, that is certainly one way hogs can become feral, but you have to understand that since colonial times, farmers have allowed hogs to free-range. Jamestown had to build a palisade, not to keep out Native Americans, but to keep out the feral hogs. https://books.google.com/books?id=aGFTAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA282&lpg=PA282&dq=jamestown+overrun+hogs&source=bl&ots=_yZtd55Dm_&sig=RAj6AzOn8NMLRWZheqYHrmL4FOM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=2Kc2UYiwLK762AWR54HwBw#v=onepage&q=jamestown%20overrun%20hogs&f=false

I know that free ranging was still ongoing in the 1940s when my father was a boy. He would turn out the pigs to the bottoms in the morning and whistle them up in the evenings. Sometimes he would get all the pigs back. Sometimes he would get a few extra. Sometimes he would be down a few. Some of the extra were the neighbors' hogs. Some never came back.

Of course, hogs may become feral by simply escaping, which is a common problem. We have all seen it. Livestock gets out from time to time.

That's all true, I was just making the point that "Feral" just means it's a domesticated animal returned to the wild which succeeds.

In our area there was a big semi loaded with hogs that overturned in Throckmorton county in the 70's and some of them survived and thrived. At least one of the big ranches in the area had also imported and released "Russian Boar" in the late 1880's for the purpose of hunting them and in that era there were no high fences much less hog proof fences (pretty much an oxymoron) but for whatever reason they didn't fare as well as the others.

Seeing a wild hog in this area prior to the truck overturning was just something that didn't happen.

There is some evidence that some of the Russians had survived and have interbred with the domestic/feral hogs that escaped.

Feral pigs in the Americas though go back as far as the first Spanish settlements in the 15th and 16th centuries but we never saw the kind of numbers or the distribution we have today.

When the hog market bottoms out there's always a few farmers that just give up and turn whatever they have left loose so there's always an influx of new blood that seems to be all that is needed.

Or, we can just blame it on "Global Warming".