Something to talk about

[Cajun]

With no hunting right now I cleaned that Barr hogs Skull. It came out so good I decided to do a couple of others. I was comparing the lower jaws on them and the biggest skull was a hog we called the Bounty hog. His molars were worn down pretty good. The Barr had all his molars in and they were in good shape. The more yellowish skull was a young boar I’m guessing to be about two. His back molars are showing but have not dropped all the way down. The Barr I am guessing 3-4 years old and the Bounty hog I am guessing around 6 or so.




Barr I did is on the left



Bounty hog



I have a video of the younger boar. Can I transfer it from my ph. like the pictures. For a young hog he really had some long skinny shanks on him.


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[The Old Man]

I wouldn't know the first thing about aging a hog by their teeth, someone might but not me.       But here's something I have read somewhere in the past, that tooth forward of the others right behind the cutter is "supposedly" the sign of a hybrid hog, Russian and Domestic mixed, and "supposedly" neither the pure Russian nor the pure Domestic has that tooth, have any of you ever heard that?                   I'm sure that "even if true"  nothing is 100% but could be generally true.

[BA-IV]

This is the oldest hog I have caught. He was an old Barr we caught in the middle of summer and he was on the decline, his teeth were real rotten on the right side where the big knot is. Teeth were super worn down and his cutters were pretty thick. I figured he was 9-10. Been on camera a long time for that guy.
 




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[Cajun]

Clue, I have heard that too. If you look at the top two pictures they have that tooth if that is the one youy are talking about but the last picture does not have that tooth. Here is the kicker tho.The top pic. is the Barr hog and He looks to be a straight Feral hog where the middle one has strong russian influence and he shows that tooth. The last pic of the Bounty hog had some russian influence including the heavy wool undercoat but he did have a white list and he does not show the tooth. I dont know if that blows that theory  out of the water or not. I might not have this in the right order but a domesticated hog has 39 chromosomes, a hybrid has 38, and a pure russian has 36.
  Ben that is something. A old one for sure. I have heard that gum disease is a big killer in older hogs.

[BA-IV]

He might not have been that old Mike, that’s me guessing. But you might be right on the gum disease. I haven’t ever heard that before, but something was definitely wrong, that knob is as big as I’ve ever seen in a skull.

[Cajun]

A guy I know found this in one of the places we hunt about 20 miles north of me. That must have been a slow painful death.


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[t-dog]

That picture is really something. Ben what was the body condition of that hog when you caught him? I think the thickness of the cutters is a good indicator of age as well. We caught a boar once though that had about 2 1/2” cutters and they were really thin. We called them pencil cutters because that’s what they put you in mind of. I would think he had to have some age anyway to have that much length but no mass in diameter. He was different for sure.

Something related to teeth but not the age thing is their set. Sometimes we catch hogs that look like their cutters point a little more upwards or lay a little flatter. In my experience those 1 1/2”-2 1/2” teeth have been the most lethal. The really long trophy teeth seem to have done less damage. It makes me wonder if it’s because they get long enough that they aren’t aligned as well with the natural swing of the hog as the are at the shorter length. Kinda like the longer they are the less room for error the hog has when he swings. I know there are exceptions and I have caught some toothy hogs that were bad, but as a whole they haven’t been the ones to fear the most.


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[BA-IV]

That picture is really something. Ben what was the body condition of that hog when you caught him? I think the thickness of the cutters is a good indicator of age as well. We caught a boar once though that had about 2 1/2” cutters and they were really thin. We called them pencil cutters because that’s what they put you in mind of. I would think he had to have some age anyway to have that much length but no mass in diameter. He was different for sure.

Something related to teeth but not the age thing is their set. Sometimes we catch hogs that look like their cutters point a little more upwards or lay a little flatter. In my experience those 1 1/2”-2 1/2” teeth have been the most lethal. The really long trophy teeth seem to have done less damage. It makes me wonder if it’s because they get long enough that they aren’t aligned as well with the natural swing of the hog as the are at the shorter length. Kinda like the longer they are the less room for error the hog has when he swings. I know there are exceptions and I have caught some toothy hogs that were bad, but as a whole they haven’t been the ones to fear the most.


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You could tell he use to be a really big Barr. He had a sagging belly but was real lean, wasn’t really poor yet but well on his way it seemed like. I doubt he would have lasted a hard winter.

[NLAhunter]

I caught this Barr last year his cutter was missing on that one side you can see it how big hole was on that side I guess rotted out had big knot on jaw bone on that side

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[The Old Man]

I think to be reproductive mammals must have an even number of chromosomes, the hybrids with an uneven number of chromosomes are the ones that are sterile, like mules. On the rare occasion a mare mule will conceive but she has only horse genes to contribute, if bred to a jack she has a true mule, if bred to a stud she will have a pure horse, that blows my mind. Not very well versed on any of the hybrids other than mules but some of the big cat crosses like Ligers etc can reproduce. I would have figured a hog was a hog and they would have had the same number of chromosomes.

[t-dog]

NLA that jaw looks like it would’ve been painful for a long time.

How many of these hogs do y’all think break their jaws? I’ve seen it happen to several catch dogs. The hog has a lot long teeth and more force with a blow so more leverage and pressure put on the bone. We all know how resilient they are so they could make it with a broke bone. Depending on the severity of it, it could also get infected.


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[cajunl]

The old man.....I thought the same. I was interested and did some researching. (Had lots of time on an airplane with nothing better to do LOL)

Seems the pure Eurasian and Asian  (36) and domestic (38) can produce hybrid (37). And hybrid (37) bred to a Hybrid (37) can produce viable offspring with (36) (37) and (38) chromosome animals in the same litter. Pretty interesting stuff, I never knew possible.


I used to raise a bunch of wild caught hogs to mess with and supply a trophy club. Seemed like genetics played the biggest role in the boars teeth (not suprising). Even with high protein feed....The ones with the good genetics grew the big teeth, The ones without didnt. Barring them helped them keep there teeth intact longer(not fighting, marking) but didnt help the genes not grow them.

[NLAhunter]

Yes I bet it was he was in real good shape when I caught him fat as could be

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[The Old Man]

That's good info on the number of chromosomes, thank you. It's hard but I try to learn something everyday haha.

[make-em-squeel]

The old man.....I thought the same. I was interested and did some researching. (Had lots of time on an airplane with nothing better to do LOL)

Seems the pure Eurasian and Asian  (36) and domestic (38) can produce hybrid (37). And hybrid (37) bred to a Hybrid (37) can produce viable offspring with (36) (37) and (38) chromosome animals in the same litter. Pretty interesting stuff, I never knew possible.


I used to raise a bunch of wild caught hogs to mess with and supply a trophy club. Seemed like genetics played the biggest role in the boars teeth (not suprising). Even with high protein feed....The ones with the good genetics grew the big teeth, The ones without didnt. Barring them helped them keep there teeth intact longer(not fighting, marking) but didnt help the genes not grow them.

Thats interesting never knew that. I agree with genetics in general for tooth size. there were areas id hunt where most everything had big teeth (like Corsicana) even small hogs, and Greenville/Farmersville caught a lot of huge hogs most small tusks, and Terrell 50/50%. IDK really and of course exceptions in every spot but generally went like that for years...

[Goose87]

I have a skull from an old Barr hog I caught in the swamp across the hwy from my house in 09, his teeth had curled and grew back into his head, he was just a hair over 450 but had a little frame and for a hog of his weight had a smaller track, but he was FAT, he had so much fat on him the processing plant made my sausage for free in exchange for all the fat scraps, anyways in this particular section on the swamp and old man and his sons still worked hogs, they trapped yr round and released every sow and cut every single male and turned back out, there were some old dinosaurs roaming around there, this individual hogs skull was much much heavier than a skull of same proportion and size from younger hogs, it is just more dense and heavy and isn’t really smooth, more like calcification pores and small pen like holes all over it, I’ve always assumed it was bc he was so old....


I think regional diet combined with genetics plays a big role on a hogs teeth, Molars in particular, to wear down, I also believe it plays a big part in cutter girth and length, I also think that the mineral content of the soil in different regions plays a much bigger role in tusk length that what has been discussed, I know a good deal of it is regional genetics but let’s look at critters from the west Texas areas, particularly white tails and hogs, the deer will be smaller bodies with freakish huge racks, even before the days of high fence and trophy management, same with the hogs, just about every boar with just a little age on him has a fine set of shanks...

I’ve seen and read countless articles on deer and antler management and one of the very first things that’s mentioned is HIGH PROTEIN, protein produces muscle growth and development, it doesn’t have a hill of beans to do with antler or tusk growth, antlers and tusk are not made of muscle, they’re minerals, if you want to grow bigger antlers and tusk then supplement their diets with the same stuff that they’re made of, it would be interesting to do a small scale study of wild caught penned up hogs and one group fed a regular base diet and another group fed  same base diet but with mineral supplementation just to see if  and how much tusk growth could be easily influenced by diet supplements...

[t-dog]

Glad to see you’re still kickin  Goose! I agree with protein/mineral theory. There is talk now that mineral has more to do with horn growth than even genetics. I don’t know if one is possible without the other but I’m not an expert. I also think it’s probably the same for teeth.


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[Cajun]

  I would think genetics plays the biggest part of big teeth and antlers. Out in the marsh the hogs do not get as big yet they grow tremendous tusks.We have taken hogs out of the marsh and  raised them and they really get bigger bodied with big tusks as well with good feed. As far as deer antler growth it is a proven fact that antler growth in the velvet stage when it is basicly blood vessels and tissue that is is the fastest growing material ever. All that being said the right protein and minerals will help tusks and antlers grow to their full potential.

[cajunl]

You can feed a Chihuahua the best feed in the world, give him all the vitamins in the world, Shoot him up with the best testosterone his whole life, pump horse steroids through his veins till they explode. He may be the biggest Chihuahua in the world, but he will still be 1/8 the size of the smallest Great Dane.

You can never cheat genetics

[HuntingHeritage]

You can feed a Chihuahua the best feed in the world, give him all the vitamins in the world, Shoot him up with the best testosterone his whole life, pump horse steroids through his veins till they explode. He may be the biggest Chihuahua in the world, but he will still be 1/8 the size of the smallest Great Dane.

You can never cheat genetics

 Here is an old study I found where the University of Wisconsin in 1899 cross bred "Razorback" hogs "trapped in Indian country" with several domestic breeds and tested the growth rate versus feed consumed of the pure breds versus hybrids.

"  A comparison of the different breeds and crosses represented in this experiment is given in table No VI The Razor back Poland China cross bred pigs ate the most grain made the greatest average gain had much the
 larger quantity of internal fat and the greatest thickness of surface fat on outside of body.

 The Yorkshires were ahead in requiring the least amount of food per 100 lbs gain.

 The Razor back pigs ate the least grain made the smallest gains and required the greatest amount of feed for 100 lbs gain, while at the same time they had the second largest quantity of internal fat.

 The cross bred Razor back Berkshire pigs stand third on the list in amount of feed eaten and gains made They also come third in thickness of external fat and show the least amount of internal fat"

 The study starts on page 45

 https://books.google.com/books?id=hy2yExBHNIEC&pg=RA2-PA46&lpg=RA2-PA46&dq=university+of+wisconsin+razorback+hogs+study&source=bl&ots=S7kcRXqxck&sig=ACfU3U0jp1GL2tqanB3kRKCxd1WEB4bhjw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjvzqTesa7wAhVXaM0KHbE6CicQ6AEwCXoECAcQAw#v=onepage&q=university%20of%20wisconsin%20razorback%20hogs%20study&f=false