I just don't understand this.........?

I keep game cameras out all year long...primarily over some dedicated Hog stands (bait sites) so I have video of different groups of hogs, all ages...both sexes...throughout the year.

Two or three times a year I will get some video of a Hog (Boar) that has been castrated (now a Barr Hog).

Not anything unusual about that...since we have some folks around here that run 'Hog Dogs' and occasionally they will 'cut' a hog that has been caught and release it.

But here is the part I don't get: Whoever is doing this (and I am pretty darn sure I know who), is cutting the entire top half off each ear of the hog (presumably to mark it). I'm not talking about pinching the the tip together and 'clipping' it (like you might do with a Calf) but fully 1/2 of the ear...cut straight across.

What in the hell is the point of that? Now...I dislike Feral Hogs as much as anyone (been battling them for over 25 years), but I have never purposely disfigured or compromised one.

Am I the only person that questions the ethics of this kind of thing?

I agree with you, I don't see a need for it or even the castration.

Seems if you want to grow a big Barr you wouldn't want to handicap him
With ear problems
Marking him fine torturing him not cool

Don't see the point but I'm sure they have one. Same as the "gut shooters" justify their view point.

No reasonable reason to do that as far as I know. I don't believe in being inhumane to any creature...

No, I don't either. Cutting the ears like that is unreasonable.

I do not believe in gut shooting either ,,,,,,

I don't see why anyone would do this. How many hogs have you seen like this?

2 to 3 per year. No doubt... there are others around that I don't see.

Got a young boar and a 'Barr' coming in to a feeder fairly regularly right now. IF they decide to start showing up at a more reasonable time (not the wee hours of the morning) I will go after them. Get you a picture then.

When they feed...they stay pretty close together...so the opportunity for a 'twofer' might present itself. They just need to get 'lined up' for a couple of seconds. The 405 gr. 'Remy' or 540 gr. hard cast 'Pile Driver' will penetrate both hogs....no problem.

Hog dogger or trapper may have kept the ears for a bounty, not unheard of.

Killed a bar hog one time, when they get cut their tusk will get supper long because they don't sharpen them anymore. Their testosterone is gone and they don't feel the need to fight for breeding purposes, so no grinding teeth. Ive been on stand and had a bore walk by me one morning grinding his tusk the hole way. He must of been gearing up for a fight with a local rival. The bar hogs tusk will look more like a spike antler than a tusk, but is still real sharp. Its kinda like a whitetail that has injured its balls. When done at the antler growth time, the antlers never come out of velvet and keep putting on more mass while the others shed he keeps his velvety horns. Im sure there is other senerios for this too. May just be gay, haha. Hey on the hog dogger thang, that's a wild bunch and just be thankful there not hunting your deer. No tellin what that would turn into. Ive done some hog doggin with some folks. It usually turns out way worse for their dogs than the hog. In the long run the hog turns into a hot commodity with those extra long tusk and it will have a trophy set of tusk that will be hunted heavily. Just think of it as a hog doggers hobby and be thankful that they are focused on an invasive species and not our GREAT AMERICAN WHITETAILS.

I ment when they cut their nuts haha Im typing and the computer is stuttering ya!

Barrows are better eating than boars. That's why they castrate them. Do it when they are small, let them grow up.

The ear thing must be a way to recognize them as castrated from a distance for hunting purposes later.

I have seen plenty of posts about hogs missing parts or all of ears, and it is almost always attributed to dogs grabbing the ears. Is it possible the dogs are doing the tearing/biting the top half of the ear off?

I could also see this as a way to mark a hog, and also as a bounty as some counties will pay for each hog captured and this may be a way to get some money for them??

This is the reason they do that. Make it easy to spot from a distance. I have seen it done, but don't agree with it. Small ear marking is plenty.

And I am sitting here to wonder how to tell a hog is fixed or not...

You might be able to tell if theyre holding one hoof up and have there nose up like a snob. They probably turn their nose up to the ladies too or could be besties, but no scratch and sniff.

Yes, I've seen plenty of hogs with 'damaged' ears (ears get crushed between dogs teeth, tissue becomes necrotic and falls off). Those types of injuries are very distinct (ear is ragged). The hogs I am seeing have neatly 'cut' ears, straight across, straight line, fully 1/2 of the ear (top half).

There is no bounty for hogs in the county I live in, but that doesn't mean someone wouldn't take them elsewhere. Doesn't seem economically feasible though.

I'd say this 'practice' is likely meant to 'mark' the hog (barr hog), but sheeeeesh...anyone with normal eyesight could spot an ear 'clipped' hog just fine. Half an ear....would show up on satellite photos!

My brother and I got a new lease last year and it's the first time I've seen there ear's cut off , I mean all the way off, we have several pic's of these hog's and my brother killed one after deer season . I don't get the reason either.

Years ago, I heard of property owners catching bad hogs and cutting their ears off. They did it if they had people jumping their fences and hunting their property with dogs. It's hard for a dog to catch a bad hog with no ears....

I also know that we would catch small boars and neuter them and clip the tips of their ears and release them on our lease. They were easily recognized as barrs.

This makes the most sense.

I don't understand your reasoning though for being upset....it's ok to cut their nuts off but not trim their ear?

Anatomically....hogs are quite easy to castrate, owing to the location of the testicles (up high on the rear and very much exposed). While I am sure...this does not make the procedure any more appealing to the hog, it can be performed quickly (even by a novice). So I am not particularly adverse to the castration of the hogs (though best done when they are young).

I don't however see the need to remove large sections of their ears...for the following reasons:

A hogs second most acute 'sense' is their sense of hearing. The ear (outer) is used like a 'funnel' to gather and channel sound to the inner ear. Removing fully 1/2 of each ear..compromises that ability.

The ears aid in dissipating heat. Yes, perhaps not to a large degree...but helpful nonetheless. Hogs are not completely without sweat glands, but the few they possess... do little to help control body heat. Instead... Hogs rely heavily on evaporative cooling of another sort. When possible...they will wet as much of their bodies as they can (in water or mud) and let that cool them. So, every square inch of skin is valuable, particularly that which has blood vessels near the surface.

I don't know if you've had a chance to observe hogs in the wild...but they use their ears (like flyswatters) to remove (or keep at bay) flying insects (mosquitoes and flies) from about their heads. They will shake the head (like a dog shedding water) so briskly...that you can literally hear the slapping sound of their ears from 50 yards away.

Lastly, when traveling in darkness...the ears help provide a tactile clue to obstacles that might present a hazard. In open areas...that would not present a problem...but in heavily wooded areas, crowded underbrush or fence crossings, it does aid them.

Point being...whether the loss of THAT much ear proves to be a significant hindrance or not...it seems entirely unnecessary for the purpose of identification only.

IMO,castration does nothing to decrease the animals ability to survive in the wild (save the possibility of infection) whereas removing large portions of their ears...likely has some effect. Hence my objection.


Flint.

I have heard of notching the ears so they can tell later.
The castration part serves 2 purposes from what I understand.
1. It eliminates them from breeding.
2. It will cause them to put on more weight so they can be trapped / caught later from an increased bounty.

I have 2 guesses on the 1/2 ear cut.
1. They are easier to see on camera or at a distance.
2. There are several groups that are cutting and that's "their mark/brand".

Why not a butane torch and a brand? we do it to cows and horses.

Yes they do. I have caught 3 or 4 hogs without any tail or short stub that I suspect have been cut off for a bounty. They release the hog to grow and get bigger for future fun. Some counties change the bounty from time to time to stop things like this. I have also seen a few cut hogs over the years that have an ear tag.

I think I just figured it out.

This ear cutting thing is 'RETRIBUTION'!

I just got back from spending two miserably hot hours replacing a tie rod end on my ranch vehicle! Yesterday evening I went to check my game cameras, check the feeders and look for hog sign. While crossing the pasture to intersect a road, my left front tire dropped off in a hole left from an old 'rooting'.

I heard a very distinct 'pop' and when I tried to turn left onto the ranch road... my Bronco just kept going straight!

I could turn to the right, but not the left. Got out...looked at the tie rod and sure enough the tie rod end had popped off the steering knuckle. So...I am dead in the water about 2 miles from home and its nearly dark.

Called my Wife to come and get me. 30 minutes pass...no wife. Text'd her the following message: "You don't have to put your make-up on....just come and get me"! She text'd me back...she had been in her nightgown, was getting dressed... will be there soon.

Long story, short.......IF I could catch a hog right now, I would be sorely tempted to cut off it's ears, testicles and certain appendages! There WILL be 'retribution'.

I grew up on a 150 sow farrow to finish hog farm. Trust me, done young enough and with proper procedures it doesn't bother them a bit. No muscles are being cut. The chance of infection surprisingly are very low. The biggest danger is cutting a ruptured hog but even that can be fixed. My dad would stitch them up. stitch the wound closed, and spray a little iodine on those but otherwise nothing.

Barrows are better eating. No testosterone to game up the meat. Not so muscular they get all tough and stringy. In fact, boars bring lower money at the market than barrows and gilts.

DocH, it doesn't bother me if people want to castrate their hogs. It makes great sense in fact. Trap them young, cut them, let them go to grow. That is if you want to hunt them later on and fill the freezer. Cutting the ear half off to mark the barrows is fine with me too. How many of us can see a tiny little notch from 100 yards? Most of our hog hunting is done at night too. I know I can't.

Now if you are some jerk dogging hogs to just cut their ear off for bounty money and letting them go then well, like I said, you are a jerk.

After siring my third child in less than 4 years, my wife demanded that I get a vasectomy. She also insisted on watching the procedure in order to verify. When he finished, the surgeon asked her if he should notch my left ear or my right.

If they are cut really short I'd go with CustomCutter's thought that they are having hog dogger problems and making some hogs tough to catch since from what I've heard, that's what the dogs latch on to.., and rough on dogs. Heard it mentioned before.

This subject got me thinking more into it. I can remember walking up to a hog pin with these six boar hogs all the same size and admiring their long tusk. When I asked the hog dogger owner why their tusk were so long he didn't say much, but that they were older hogs. I knew better than that because I have killed more than my share of wild hogs that their tusk don't get 6inches long at 200 pounds. What he failed to tell me is that they were all cut when they were captured at a younger age. He said that he was tired of feeding them and asked if I knew anybody that would want them. I found him a buyer at 100 dollars a piece. Their tusk brought the sale quick. They went to a hunting ranch. One thing I have discovered about hog doggers is that they don't like killing hogs. They actually get mad when I mention killing them. They want the hogs to populate, so that they are easier to find to hunt. Ive noticed that most people that catch hogs in whatever means just relocate them in a alive state. I know of a paid trapper that catches thousands of hogs and never kills them, just relocates them on hunting clubs ect, which really defeats the hole purpose of trying to concur the hog.

Everyone I know that traps kill em on the spot. No trailering and relocating among my circle...

Yes, we kill every hog trapped...on the spot. Same with snared hogs (if the snare hasn't already done the job).

Of course, they are a 'shoot on sight' pest on the ranch. But no matter what you do, they just keep making more.

This is not about cutting an ear clean, but cutting a notch in the ear.

Hey that's a good thang. Ive seen so many hogs that were trapped and moved around like gypsy's for other people to hunt to kill or to chase around with dogs. I feel you on the hog killin, I hate them too. I feel like one day we will all be crying about how the hogs are spreading diseases and are affecting our deer. That's a phobia of mine. They already eat all the acorns that the other critters rely on for fat building for the winter. Lately the deer Ive been killing don't have much or any fat on them. Not to mention theyre just down right pesky, nasty animals that need to be gone.

Hey that's a good thang. Ive seen so many hogs that were trapped and moved around like gypsy's for other people to hunt to kill or to chase around with dogs. I feel you on the hog killin, I hate them too. I feel like one day we will all be crying about how the hogs are spreading diseases and are affecting our deer. That's a phobia of mine. They already eat all the acorns that the other critters rely on for fat building for the winter. Lately the deer Ive been killing don't have much or any fat on them. Not to mention theyre just down right pesky, nasty animals that need to be gone.