Home Consider This Using iPhones and Texting to Reduce Feral Pig Problems

Using iPhones and Texting to Reduce Feral Pig Problems

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Pig PopulationsThe estimated 2.6 million feral hogs living in Texas cause big problems. The Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service’s 2004 survey found that they cause $2 million in damage to agriculture in the state and landowners spend and additional $7 million to control pig or fix damages.  Given that feral hog damage in the U.S. is estimated at $1.5 billion per year, this new method for trapping feral hogs, could be a blessing to producers everywhere.

Pigs are lured to the pen with food.  As they go in, the farmer/rancher is notified by a phone text message.  The cameras in the pen give him a look at what he’s got in the pen and with a simply push of a button he can close the pen’s gate, trapping the pests inside.

Feral hogs captured in the pens can be held by the landowner for up to 7 days before an inspection of holding facilities is required by the Texas Animal Health Commission. To recoup trapping costs, captured sows can be sold to permitted slaughter facilities. Landowners are also allowed to butcher and process them for home consumption.

Here’s raw footage of the feral hogs and the trap if you’d like to see more:

Video no longer available

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Kathy Voth
I am the founder, editor and publisher of On Pasture, now retired. My career spanned 40 years of finding creative solutions to problems, and sharing ideas with people that encouraged them to work together and try new things. From figuring out how to teach livestock to eat weeds, to teaching range management to high schoolers, outdoor ed graduation camping trips with fifty 6th graders at a time, building firebreaks with a 130-goat herd, developing the signs and interpretation for the Storm King Fourteen Memorial trail, receiving the Conservation Service Award for my work building the 150-mile mountain bike trail from Grand Junction, Colorado to Moab, Utah...well, the list is long so I'll stop with, I've had a great time and I'm very grateful.