18!!! What does he do with them? Sounds like too much sausage for one family to me.

The MO Conservation is encouraging the destruction of these pests. They don't belong here as part of the "native wildlife"...in fact they are taking from the real wildlife. Since posting this morning, I have learned that there are others doing the same thing with the same sort of results. I am beginning to wonder if we have been deliberatly infested with them to satisfy some hunting club as Lucky_P reported going on in KY. As I understand the problem, it is too many and too localized to be a normal infestation. I have to wonder if the National Forests are being used in the same manner as Ft. Campbell was in KY?

Millie, what are the farmers doing with them? are they butchering them? i would think, with the price of meat, there would be people eliminating them. i can hardly imagine the damage a herd of hogs would do to a garden-- but free pork chops would sound good, or are they so old they would have to be sausage?anyway, my sympathies are with you.

Hope nobody thought I meant he was killing too many. I was just thinking it would be a pain to get rid of the carcases (not sure I spelled that right). They multiply like bunnies so I think it's wise to thin them out as much as possible.

ceresone, I really don't know. In the case of destruction permits for deer, the permitee is not allowed to keep any of the meat. You can give it to anyone else who wants it. In the case of these hogs...I have been told that you don't need a license or anything...just kill them, so I would think you can keep it if you want. Some will be too old for much of anything, and intact males would be worse than "gamey."

Christie, I knew exactly what you meant. I had the same reaction myself. Can only guess the answer, but in the case of destruction permits for deer, you are told that if no one wants them to drag them off into the woods for the other wildlife to feed on. I suspect that is the answer to the excess hogs. We are surrounded by National Forest area...thousands of acres. The County road crew were working out here when one was hit by a vehicle, so they buried it along side the road to get rid of what would have been a pretty stinky mess.

One thing about trapping them...you can wait for a neighbor to come get it before slaughtering it. On the other hand, you might want to get your trap set up again right away. All I know is there must be an awful lot of them for two different farmers to be trapping them in those numbers. No matter what...it's not a good time to be trying to process meat in this heat.