Hey Eddie, look what I got!

[goeduck]

Peccary - Wikipedia

 

[STx]

I just posted my suggestion on your page. Hamilton always makes me laugh a little with the word Ham in the beginning for a pig.


From what I understand, Javelina are not pigs. They are their own species and unable to cross breed. Saying that, there are no native pig species to North America. I watched a show about hogs on National Geographic Channel and they said that a domestic hog, with floppy ears, curled tail and not hair will actually change it's DNA when it's set free, or escapes into the wild. It's ears will stand up, it's tail will straighten and it will become covered in hair. I forget exactly how long this takes, but it's fairly quickly. Maybe a year or two. I just find that to be amazing!!!!

They'll go completely feral in a single generation. Pigs are incredibly smart and resilient.

Javelina are definitely distinct, I've read that they are more closely related to a hippo than a pig. I can't remember where but, it was a credible source.

Here's a picture my wife took of our javelina at the feeder one afternoon. They have horrible eyesight so it's very easy to sneak up on them. I enjoy watching them, they're neat animals with a complex social order. Interestingly, they are very matriarchal, if you remove the dominant female in a group, it almost always leads to herd collapse.

 

[STx]

Wouldn't let me put the photo in the other post.

 

[EddieWalker]

That's cool. I've never personally seen a live Javelina in the wild. I've thought about hunting them just to add one to my collection, but it's pretty low on my list. Do the rut up the ground like the wild hogs do?

 

[STx]

The worst we get from them are armadillo type divots. Our soil doesn't have much clay so a good rain will often fill them back in. Since they're native, they're adapted to the environment and do very little damage. They help keep the prickly pear under control and keep some of the underbrush cleared down very low. Full grown, they're only about 45 pounds.

 

[quicksandfarmer]

The smell is really a problem of overcrowding or not rotating them frequently enough. I had none when I could move them with the hotwire. The last 2 months I've had to keep them in a real pen and while it's large for 2 pigs, it is starting to have some odor on hot days. They've also rooted it badly. Once they're gone, I'm going to disc and rake it to level it out again. It'll be a great garden plot next year.

My experience is that spots where pigs have been don't make good gardens. The pigs eat everything in the soil that is organic, and compact it. What's left becomes rock hard and impervious to water, you get puddles on the surface. But maybe I'm just growing the wrong things, certain weeds grow extremely well where the pigs have been. If I leave a spot alone the weeds will be six feet tall by the end of the summer. What's tough is the pigs leave the ground so rutted that it's hard to mow.

 

[DMax82]

So how big will this dude get?

 

[STx]

500+ pounds. It depends a lot on what breed genetics are in him. Some are smaller than others.

 

[Luke'sScreenName]

My aunt did this a couple of times in Atascosa Co with three trapped piglets each time. There was a barbeque place down there that would buy the meat.

 

[STx]

Vicious little guy...