trapping with a HOT SOW ?

[Georgia-Hawgs]

Sorry for posting so much but ive got questions and this is a good place to get answers. I raise a few mule foot and red wattle hogs from time to time.(all domestic). I always raise sow pigs for the freezer. I have wild hogs around my house and have always thought about building a holding pen with a one way door on it. And when the sow comes in heat maybe. Just maybe an ole boar hog would come pokin around and get caught. What yall think? Anybody ever tried this ?

[11kbramhall]

I don't know anyone personally that does it but I do remember watchin a video on youtube or somewhere one time of guys catchin all boars with a trap they had build that had a holding pen in the middle for a sow in heat.  they had three other pens set up coming off of it with some kinda trip doors and they could catch three boar hogs at a time and were doin it pretty well!! if a man already had a sow it might be worth a shot.

[Goose87]

As long as you have a way to keep her fed and watered without having to go down there everyday. I did it with my old pen when one would get out, even caught a few wild ones. I know several folks who have done this. It works best in areas with a lot of consistent sign. As soon as deer season is over me and a friend are building one in the river swamp by the house. There is a flow well by the old camp house so we're going to direct the water to be able to flow through the pen and keep an automatic feeder going. We're going to take 4 panels and put it together to where it forms a shape kind of like the hurricane symbol on the weather channels. It will be a steady feed on both ends.

[Reuben]

I know of two pig pens out in the woods where hogs were raised for market...one pen was low enough for the wild boars to jump in with the hot sows...the other fellow had boars circling the pig pens...these two guys shot boars on regular occasion

[cgasch]

It should work as long as you keep in mind that when a boar hog approaches the pen he determines whether the sow is in heat by the way she responds to him. Odor has very little to do with it, so make sure she has enough space to move around. I was in the commercial hog business in my younger days and we did a lot of AI. To determine when a sow was ready to breed we would expose them to a boar and watch how they responded.

[halfbreed]

     caught more  GOOD BOAR HOGS that way than we ever did with bait . the trap we used had two one way doors going into a big holding pen . we could set the outside door with a trip wire then when caught they pushed into the holding pen through the second door . we kept a 55 gal drum gravity feed feeder in the holding pen . the pen it's self was built into a stock pond on one end so we all ways had plenty of feed and water .  at times we would catch a ton of hogs without ever setting the trap , the boar hogs would push the gates and go in to get some   lol . it is the best method bar none for catching big boars , but the sow will get bred and need to be replaced . our old sow we used for along time was born in the holding pen and lived there till she died of old age .she had a lot of her own babies in that pen as well . our holding pen was about a 1/4 acre in size built under several large oak trees . it was such a busy trap we finally built loading ramps and shoots to separate large from small and make emptying the trap a one man project . we only went down on the weekends or when the ranch owner called and told us he didn't think it would hold any more hogs  lol  .

[charles]

Iv seen it work many times, but like shotgun said, ur sow will get bred, so if u can keep a couple additional sows along with the sow in the pen, u can rotate them out. Only way to possibly prevent her getting bred is to build a pen inside/to the side (20x20) of the main pen so she can roam around and not be tightly confined and the boar/s will think he's gonna get a lil but wont be able to.

[Reuben]

back in the mid 1960's we didn't have any wild hogs in Edna, Texas...but a neighbor down the road had caught a wild shoat down by Laredo, Texas and he brought it to Edna and raised it as a pet...The man lived about 2.25 miles as the crow flies from us and we had a Duroc sow about 250 pounds that was in heat...the wind must of been blowing just right because that wild boar was circling the pig pen wanting in...My routine was to get up at the crack of dawn and step out to see if any coons, possums or whatever was out and about...if so I would sneak up with the dogs and they would try to catch whatever we were after before they made it to the big rose hedges....that morning I got up and the first thing I saw was that big spotted boar circling and I recognized him right away...I sic'ed my dogs on him and realized real quick he was going to hurt my dogs by how he lunged and threw that big head around with those big tusks...I called my dogs off and went and got my dad...he let the boar in and we had 9 or 10 piglets some time later...for years I wondered how far he had smelled the sow and I finally took a rough measurement with my truck odometer...there is no doubt in my mind a wild hog can smell a long ways with the right wind conditions...the weather was fairly cool those days and the wind had to of been blowing from east to west...