Hog headaches

Feral hogs caused at least $30 million in damage to crops on Louisiana farms in 2013, and Perchville farmer Kurt Sittig estimates he loses anywhere from $5,000 to $10,000 or more each year to the prolific animal that has rapidly spread to every corner of the state.
“They bust up the rice fields more than the soybean fields,” Sittig said on a recent morning as he looked for new damage to his fields and noted several new trials in his rice cuts that were not there the day before. “They are not bad on the beans once the beans start growing. When beans start to germinate, that’s when they like to eat them, when the beans are juicy. They like to eat the rice when it’s in the milk to dough stage.
“I’ve been fortunate the last few years. We’ve been keeping them at bay.”
According to a recent LSU AgCenter study, the 2013 Louisiana soybean crop suffered more than $9 million worth of hog damage, hay producers lost about $7 million and the state’s rice and corn industries both had about $5 million in damage.
Sittig has farmed property in Perchville for 14 years. Hogs have always been a problem in the area, but the number of hogs increases yearly he said.
“I’ve got 70 acres of rice and got 46 barrels to the acre last harvest,” Sittig said as he drove his all-terrain vehicle along a levee and spotted a section of levee across the cut that had been damaged by the hogs. “I’ve got another 36 acres planted along the woods, and I only got 32 barrels to the acre there. That’s a 14 barrel difference.”
“June and July are the worst month as far as economic damage to the crops.”
In addition to eating and just plain destroying crops, hogs also burrow into levees looking for grub worms and rub the bark off trees in a 160-acre pine tree stand near Sittig’s fields, which prevents the trees from growing. Sittig’s property also has several electrical posts dotted across it, and the hogs have learned to rub themselves against the creosote-coated posts, which keeps ticks and bugs off the coarse-haired animals. Judging by the height of the rub marks on the posts, some of the hogs are fairly large.
While the state is searching for a way to manage the feral hog problem, Sittig is staying on top of the problem by hunting the animals with dogs, utilizing two traps and hunting during the day and night.
“We run them with dogs, but the hogs know their sounds now,” Sittig said. “It seems like they hear dogs, and they just run forever. The hogs run back and forth between my land and Eric Bollich’s (another farmer), who is also having some damage. The hogs wise up.”
Sittig said he and several hunters, including his three sons, killed six hogs in a week within the last 30 days, and with regular hunting and dog hunting, they kill about 50 to 65 hogs a year. The largest hog taken on the property weighed 300 pounds.
“I came out here the other day in the morning, and they were in the rice field,” Sittig said. “Late one afternoon, I passed by and counted at least 34 before they all ran off.”
“You’ve got to stay on top of them. They wise up to the trap, too. You’ve got to move them around.”
According to Sittig, he has the best success with trapping during the months of January and February, when there is no mast or crops for the hogs to eat and a pile of bait in a trap is too tempting for the creatures to pass up.
While Sittig’s methods of hunt and trap and kill are currently the most effective way to control hogs, AgCenter scientists are studying alternatives, including a sodium nitrite-based bait.
AgCenter economist Shaun Tanger has gathered data for more than a year from the state’s farmers regarding hog activity and damage on their property. Tanger questioned farmers about where hogs were rooting up, what crops they were eating and if the hogs had damaged any farm equipment. About 31 percent of those surveyed said they have hogs on their land.
“Up to this point, we’ve only had anecdotes, so we wanted to quantify how much cost is associated with feral hog activity,” said Tanger, who worked on the survey project with other AgCenter staff. “Up to 75 percent of the state’s feral hogs would have to be eliminated just to maintain the current population.”
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, there are about 6 million feral hogs living in at least 41 states, and Louisiana’s feral hog population is estimated to be around 500,000. Hogs are also concentrated in the south-central and northeastern parts of the state. Besides damaging property, hogs can also spread fatal diseases to wildlife and livestock.
If the state’s hog problem continues to grow as fast as it has in the last few years, the aggressive animals will likely to move into suburban areas, leading to human-hog encounters.
“Once this becomes a non-farm problem, it will become a much more urgent policy problem,” Tanger said.