Hogs - No longer Nocturnal !?!

[rogerstv]

I suspect they may be smarter than average with regards to their animal instincts (eat, breed, survive). If they were truly intelligent, they would learn the feeder means danger and never go to it for food.

 

[robert l]

Eventually they will grow thumbs and develop body armor.

thats ok i shoot a 338 edge/

 

[GunHawk]

Fair enough man. Afterall, my redneck experience is anecdotal at best!

It's pretty hard arguing with the 'omnipotent' Google.

Just sharing an alternate point of view, as it relates to hunting. Maybe pigs can play video games better than dogs - that doesn't really interest me. Im happy to disagree harmoniously, again, just putting it out there. I have raised and hunted both species and my experience has been contrary to popular belief.

I'm not the only one who feels this way;

http://sugarmtnfarm.com/2011/08/20/of-pig-brains-and-tea-cups/

Personally I believe its PETA and Disney who want us to think pigs are smart, but it's just a theory!

Not biting that bait, the fact that you know the difference between anecdote and data gives you away! You're pulling our leg pretending to be a dumb redneck (I know a few very smart rednecks- E.O Wilson might even qualify). Like that you didn't respond with anger,... wise.

 

[Danny Butler]

Hogs will always feed in the day whenever there is no hunting pressure. If you will notice they start moving to the night shift the later it gets in the hunting season.They do have a tendency to lay up in cool areas in the heat of the day.

 

[robert l]

I agree with several others, hogs adapt VERY quickly and they seem to learn from one another much faster than deer or other species.

yes i agree. we hunt in south florida and the hogs down here seem to be very smart we will bait a known travel path that is active we set a feeder then wait a few days then set up on them at 300 yards.the first two to three trips are very productive then it shuts down.so we wood wait a week to ten days to set up on them again.not going back but to reload the feeder. you can see that they have been there but when we set up at night nothing.and we are talking between 30 to 50 critters.we try all differant times off the night and day no luck.so i decided to come back after sitting there for 4 hours i would leave for a couple of hours and slide back in a hundred yards further back so i would be at 400 yards and sure enough they would be there.i have been doing this for two years in differant locations and it works every time.even at closer ranges.i cant tell yall how many deer i have watched just my thoughts and habits of these hogs in this area.

 

[Mach 1]

thats ok i shoot a 338 edge/

Some of my 308 reloads are more likely to go through level 3 body armor than you 338 edge lol

 

[Brett Bracken]

J Klingenberg pretty much summed it up...hogwise that is. My experience has been the same on my ranch in Central Texas. I might add that the large boars (200+ lbs and over) are solitary and are the hardest to get shots on. They are very wary and it's as if they have a sixth sense about when they are being stalked. From my game cams they are impossible to pattern and roam over very large areas....probably looking for females in estrus is my guess. A large boar my show up on my cams for 2 or 3 nights in a row and then disappear only to show up over on the cams on the ranch 4 miles away 2 weeks later. Who knows where he goes in the interim. It has also been my experience that the big boars are way more nocturnal than diurnal, although I have seen them on occasion in the middle of the day. Another thing....the worse the weather the more likely I am to see hogs.....especially during the day. In my experience.......heavy rain, sleet or snow is the best time to see hog activity and be out hunting. Just some of my experiences.

 

[Kiwi Greg]

I have had a few pet Pigs I've caught in the wild.
They are extremely intelligent & very easy to train, they are certainly far ahead of Dogs in that area.

 

[Smokepoles]

Humans are a pretty smart species on paper but we all know a few that could knock us down a few ranks on the list.. Pigs make theyre own schedule, I do strongly believe on the lunar calender but they'll adapt to a feeder timer and moon phase goes out the window. They are just hungry little a holes that do whatever they want and go nocturnal after being pressured. Unfortunately ive had to attempt to eradicate them more than I care to admit, bring out the guns for a couple days and they wont step out til dark for the next few. They could be on a completely different schedule a half mile away, its all relative to what they deal with in a day. I will say if you want to have some fun with them climb a tree over a feeder with a real quiet bow and see how many you can get, youd be surprised how stubborn they can be when the foods on the ground and they don't want theyre buddies to eat it first.

 

[John Bucklin]

Well guys, they have to sleep sometime.

 

[Ed Bryant]

Pigs, deer, and coyotes out smart me nearly every time I get to go to the woods. So as bad as I hate to admit it I am the one feeling a lack of intelligence.

sounds familiar

 

[Ed Bryant]

sounds familiar

 

[SCSCHNUR]

I think hunting pressure will drive them nocturnal, as I've observed only young ones (if any at all) taken on ranches with high hunting pressure, and our youth hunts are day hunts only. I've seen mature hogs taken during the day on ranches that are highly managed or seldom hunted.

Weather will also cause them to change their habits. The only time I've been on a hunt specifically for hogs, we had a successful hunt the first afternoon. A storm came through that night, and we never saw another hog. The ranch hadn't been hunted in 10 years other than the author of a hunting column in a newspaper, and he'd only been there a couple of times. Deer and turkey were everywhere and not really alarmed about our presence.

Left alone, though, I think hogs follow patterns similar to deer as I've seen them out at the same time as deer, day or night. One time I even saw them in tall grass together, which is not normal.

As to intelligence, I read a summary on a study conducted many years ago, pre-internet when I read it. The study involved pigs and beer. Turns out pigs like beer....a lot. In the study, the lead boar liked it so much he wanted it all and wouldn't share. He quickly became a drunk. The next boar on the pecking order took advantage of this, challenging and subduing the drunk to become the new lead boar. According to the study, the drunk then went on the wagon and took the lead position back. It didn't mention, however, if it was the new lead boar becoming a lush with the same behavior that led to the downfall of the first lead boar (hence the first lead boar being on the wagon was not of his choice), so I have some skepticism about it.

The pigs liking beer isn't surprising to me. We used to lease a property that had 4 silos. When you fill them with any kind of green grains (corn, sorghum, etc.), stalk included, it ferments. The juice runs out the cracks in the concrete at the bottom, right into the feed lot. Drunk cows, drunk birds, you name it; if it's in that feed lot, it's drunk! Very entertaining to watch, especially when the birds try to fly.

I lived in Garden City Kansas as a young hippie type and we had a Sheriff named Grover and we named this big hog Grover after the Sheriff and he loved beer could drink a case at a time. You could give it a can and he would tip it up and mouth it turning it around till he got it opened and drank it. Also had some hogs and someone left the cover off the well and water froze up and had to take them hogs into sale barn and one got away and he slept out in a shed behind my trailer and we move a 1/4 mile up the road to a two story farm house and the next day I was looking out the second story window and it had rained the night before and I saw tracks leading from the feed lot and it was that hog. He came up walked all around the house then walked back to the feed lot where he lived in that shed. They are very smart and learn fast.

 

[Code4]

My wife grew up on a stud piggery. She says they are a lot like humans. Very smart ones, leaders and followers and ones that are dumb as ..... well you get the idea.