Another Hog Catch

 My trapper caught a largish sow and SIX small pigs in a single catch.

Of course you can not tell from the above low resolution photo, but there were only THREE pigs when it came time to load into transport trailer.   Only one of the pigs is clearing visible in the transport trailer.  Three had escaped through the "hog panel" wire of the trap.  The transport trailer in the photo was made from hog wire with slightly smaller openings.  So, four hogs left my place yesterday.  

This "escape from the trap" is a fairly common problem.  Some people subscribe to the idea that the hog meat from hog control efforts should be put to good use.  My trapper is one such.  Even though it seems fairly obvious (to me) that hogs, once caught, should NOT survive capture.  Escaping a trap makes then more wary about getting caught again.  Therefore adding to the enormous hog problem that we have.  I have no compunction about shooting the hogs in the traps even if it means the meat will eventually rot.

As I was taking the photo, I asked my trapper if he carried a pistol; the answer was "yes".  But he feels obligated to put the hog meat to use.  When he discovered the trap with the seven hogs, around ten more were milling about in the area.  So, out of a group of perhaps 17 hogs, we removed only four.  At least three of those 15 survivors are now trained to be more difficult to catch; perhaps the other 12 that did not spend time in the trap also received some training.

More serious trappers video monitor traps and the gates are dropped remotely when the group in the trap seems to have reached a maximum.  Further, they are highly likely to shoot those caught while they are still in the trap.  Of course that strategy results in having to manually load dead hogs on to a trailer and then having some risk of the meat deteriorating between the time of death and refrigeration of the meat.  Commercial slaughter houses accept only live animals for processing.