# Went hog hunting today.....



## Elizabeth (Jun 4, 2002)

...with my new little bird dog.
.....in Minnesota.
....Here's what we got-









oh yeah, and this, too....









and this









Hubby shot the sow









Now we need to go back out and catch 7 more little baby pigs


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## TonyE (Aug 1, 2007)

Nice shot! :cowboy:


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## big rockpile (Feb 24, 2003)

Thats Big Old Sow.:goodjob:I wish I could find some.

big rockpile


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## Raptor (Aug 29, 2005)

What breed of dog is that ?


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## Elizabeth (Jun 4, 2002)

He's a Rhodesian Ridgeback, just 7 months old and already doing a big dog's job, lol.


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## animalfarmer (Feb 14, 2006)

That's a nice looking sow and I am sure she will produce a nice carcass with some nice cuts. I, like you, would be out looking for the piglets as soon as I could.Though the sow is nice,I would have one of those piglet's stuck,scraped and on the spit or in the oven in no time.Not a lot, but delicious at that age and size.We kill domestic suckling pigs here all the time and everyone enjoys them.I would like to see some photos of the sow dressed out.Tell us what you plan for the piglets.Best of luck,John.


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## Murray in ME (May 10, 2002)

Nice looking sow. Lots of good eating there. Beautiful dog.


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## Pops2 (Jan 27, 2003)

did the dog actually find and bay the hog? if so, all you need now is a good bulldog and you can catch them alive.


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## Gregg Alexander (Feb 18, 2007)

Nice whens supper,lol


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## Cason (May 28, 2007)

How neat.. I've heard there is an abundance of feral hogs (although we don't have those here) They just walk around in the cornfields?


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## Pops2 (Jan 27, 2003)

there is an overabundance of hogs. they don't just walk around the cornfields they destroy them and eat them. they might not be in your neck of the woods but you've got them in MO too.


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## Cason (May 28, 2007)

Really? I wonder where? I'd like to go blast at one .. North Missouri here- just about 20 miles from the Iowa line.


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## Pops2 (Jan 27, 2003)

check w/ Rock or tedH


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## Pops2 (Jan 27, 2003)

i forgot to say, that was a well placed shot. most folk shoot them high behind the shoulder like a deer.


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## Irish farmer (Dec 21, 2007)

I'm curious about the dog too. Did it bay the hog?


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## Elizabeth (Jun 4, 2002)

Well, I was waiting to see if Cabin Fever or Haggis weighed in on this one, lol. 
Fact is, we DON'T have wild hogs in Minnesota, at least not this far North, and at least as far as anyone knows. This sow must have been someone's domesticated hog at some point- my guess is that she was a young hog, pregnant with her first litter when she got wiggy and broke out of wherever she had been housed and went looking for a nesting site in which to farrow. 
No one around our neighborhood has been looking for a missing hog so we're not sure where she could have come from, but she found our corn field and took up residence. Hubby estimates that she and the piglets have done at least $1000 worth of damage, and we're guesstimating that they did a lot more- it's just impossible to get in there to find out until harvest.

The pup did not bay the hog. He just tracked her. He is really too young to go after hogs in the first place, and, I am taking him to the Rhodesian Ridgeback National Specialty show in Gettysburg next week so there was no way I was going to take a chance on him getting torn up now- I had him on the check cord the whole time. He got us within earshot of the hogs on Thursday. Hubby and I got separated while tracking and I got to the hogs first, armed with pup and a sidearm. I pulled Pup back and between that and hubby moving up, not knowing for sure where we were, we made a bit of a racket and the hogs moved away. In all Pup tracked them for almost 2 
hours. At that point all we were doing was pushing them around the field so we quit for the day.

Hubby went back on Friday morning to the spot where we had last seen them and waited till they showed up. He shot the sow- he wasn't happy with his shot placement- he had intended to hit her a little farther forward, but had a difficult time getting the shot at all through the corn. She did not go down right away, so that was when he called me and I brought Pup back down to help track her. 

Unfortunately we did not take any pictures after hubby dressed her out. He had to drag her out of the field by himself before field dressing her and he was a little winded by the time we got to the edge of the field, lol.

John, not sure what we will do with the piggies. I never thought about suckling pig until you suggested it- have to run that by hubby and see what he thinks. If we end up catching all of them we just might take your suggestion. I am thinking we should keep at least a few of the females and maybe breed them, since this will likely be the only time we will ever get to hunt hogs up here. The next time we want pork we'll have to do it the way everyone else around here does it- by feeding them, lol. We were planning on getting some hogs soon anyway because pork is about the only meat we have to buy, looks like now we have them. Maybe feed the males till they are a bit bigger and then butcher them. No one in the family raises hogs, so there are plenty of relatives willing to help us out if our freezers get too full, lol.

Gregg- supper will be in a couple of weeks after we get the meat back from the butcher, lol. We don't have any place to hang meat here so we had to take her in.


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## Gregg Alexander (Feb 18, 2007)

Get pictures, we have lots of hogs around here. I like hunting them and keeping the freezer full with hog and deer meat


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## Pops2 (Jan 27, 2003)

too bad you had to shoot her (in the pic it looked low behind the shoulder, a heart shot). if it happens again you can build a figure 9 trap from t posts and hog/sheep panels.
forgot, GOOD puppy. keep it in the woods and you'll have a good dog. that's a long track for any young dog but especially a ridgie since their hunting abilities have been so neglected. that dog is special.


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## dogo (Dec 3, 2005)

Pops2 said:


> did the dog actually find and bay the hog? if so, all you need now is a good bulldog and you can catch them alive.


Pops2 It would be better if they got a Argentine dogo they were bred just for Hog and Cat. They don't bark on the trail as bull dog or any other breed. People who never have hunted hogs don't realize how well they can hear . Once they know they are being hunted "dog bark" on a hot trail they can and will be in the next county before being bayed .That is why the dogo makes good hog dogs. The hog don't know he is being hunted till the dogo finds him and attack. Thats when all h--- breaks loose and then you can turn your other dogs loose if you have any. Most hog hunter's in Texas are switching to the dogo's. Most people have never heard of them and they didn't show up in American till the early eighty's. But to each his own they say. That is a beautiful Ridgeback, thats for sure.


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## crashy (Dec 10, 2004)

Yup that is some pig:goodjob::1pig: I can't believe no one said that!!! LOL


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## Pops2 (Jan 27, 2003)

dogo
have you ever hunted hogs? bulldogs don't bark unless they are held back from what they want to get hold of. i just went over this whole thing on another message board. when it comes to catching hogs the only real difference between a good dogo, a good american bulldog and a good pit is size. as long as they are wellbred from working stock all 3 breeds will for sure catch you some hogs. all 3 breeds work roughly the same way. none of them if running a track (because in this country most people won't use any of them to run the track only to catch afterward) they should at no time open their mouth.
besides i don't reccommend the dogo for everybody. a good working bred dogo is a hard hard dog and WAY more dog than most people are able to handle.


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## Elizabeth (Jun 4, 2002)

Thanks for all the compliments. I am over the moon about this pup right now and very excited to see how he turns out.

Dogo- the point of the post was that
a) we don't have wild hogs here (normally, lol) and
b) We just used the pup we had available and were pretty happy to see how he picked up the track and stayed with it as long as he did, with no previous training.

If we lived in an area where there was a population of wild hogs we would definitely be hunting them and would probably invest in a catch dog. But this was a one-off event, unlikely to ever happen again in our area.

By the way, the Ridgebacks are silent trailers on game too.

Anyway, I just really like Ridgebacks more than any other breed of dog. That is why I am training mine to hunt birds instead of just getting a bird dog. When the season is over and I have to live with the dog till next season I want that dog to be Ridgeback. I have never liked retrievers, setters, or pointers much.


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## GBov (May 4, 2008)

That is SOME pig, WOW! and what a great pup :clap:

Did you catch the rest of the piggies?


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## MN Gardener (Jan 23, 2008)

Elizabeth said:


> Well, I was waiting to see if Cabin Fever or Haggis weighed in on this one, lol.
> Fact is, we DON'T have wild hogs in Minnesota, at least not this far North, and at least as far as anyone knows.


THANK GOODNESS!!! I was getting concerned that I might run into one on my walk in the woods!


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## Iddee (Sep 25, 2005)

Did you catch the rest of the piggies?


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## Elizabeth (Jun 4, 2002)

We have only caught three of the piglets so far. We gave up temporarily when I went back East for the dog show. Since I got back we have been too busy to try again. We went out a couple of days ago and walked up on the whole litter piled up sleeping, but of course, they all got away again.

We tried some small live traps but only caught a cat and a raccoon so we gave up on those. I guess we will have to build a proper hog trap. The problem is access- there is no easy or convenient way to get panels or any other large or bulky materials back in there. I think we will try to make a trap using metal posts and a roll of dog wire- hopefully they are small enough that it will hold them in.

Any suggestions for building a trap out of materials we can haul on the 4-wheeler?


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## Reptyle (Jul 28, 2005)

Elizabeth said:


> Any suggestions for building a trap out of materials we can haul on the 4-wheeler?


Found this site...Pops can tell you if the info is any good...

http://feralhogs.tamu.edu/trap.cfm


Edit: Forgot to add, beautiful pup!


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## Pops2 (Jan 27, 2003)

easier & cheaper would be a figure 6 trap. itliterally shaped like a 6 but w/ less space between the tail and the circle. it needs to be made from some form of welded wire fencing heavy enough the hogs can't tear it up. if they aren't much bigger than pictured, welded 2X4 garden fencing would do. the end of the tail needs a post and the inside of the circle needs to overlap and have a post within about 3 ft of the inside end and posts around the outside where needed to keep the structure strong enough. by the time they hit 100# you'll need proper hog/sheep panels at least 4 ft tall and made from 6-4 ga welded wire.
you use it by propping the door open and leaving the bait until you have good sign they using it then let the door go and they'll push in but can't push out.


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