Wild Pigs!

Yes, there’s a bunch of wild pigs out here in the Texas country. They’re not the real wild boars that you read about. They’re what they call “feral pigs”. There’s been a lot of news lately about feral cats in WI. “Feral” refers to formerly domesticated animals escaped/abandoned and now living in the wild. People seem to come out here to the country and drop off their cats and dogs. We’ve taken care of 3 or 4 dogs out here that just showed up one day. And the cats, man, it’s too much. But that’s another topic.

Apparently, these feral pigs out here are descendants of pigs that were let free or escaped in years past. They reproduce rather prolifically and make some big herds. They are very destructive of pasture and fences. When on the run they just blast through fences. Sometimes they bounce right off, if the fence is fairly new and strong, but most times they just tear up the fence. And you can tell where they’ve been rooting around, because they can make a pasture look like it was just plowed in some places. But they are pretty elusive. Every time we see them, we don’t have our camera. We have been lucky enough to shoot two of them over the years, though. And let me tell you, they make excellent food. Wow! I was shocked at how good it was. They are definitely free ranging and that seems to make all the difference. Their meat is lean and tasty. I’d like to get another one if I ever manage to have my gun with me at the right time. I’m not a big hunter and I don’t do it for sport, but we do own plenty of guns and use them to hunt for food and practice hunting for food.

But anyway, just this morning I was headed out to the Graveyard Pasture (far north corner of the property)and was very surprised to run into this one mama pig with her little piglets — about 10 of them. Normally, by the time you see them, the pigs are already on the run, having already heard you or sniffed your scent. But this mama apparently couldn’t detect my presence. There was a fairly stiff breeze and they were upwind. But I was on the tractor with the big mower on the back. Nonetheless, they were just walking along at a leisurely pace. I fumbled for my camera and got it powered up and got a few good shots. These are very rare in my experience out here. I’ve never seen a mama and all her piglets out in the open like this just sauntering along.

I was glad they posed for the picture.

Amazingly on the same journey to the pasture, I ran into some wild turkeys. I couldn’t get the camera out in time for that though.

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