488 pound feral hog killed in Texas

That’s a lot of pork!!!

OINKzilla

you could make every moslem in America self deport with pictures of that thing..........my god that's huge

I had an old timer once tell me that hogs never stop growing. He has since passed but I think of him every time I see a report like this one.

Wow! I wonder how old he was to get to that size?

Suspect it has a lot more to do with genetics vs age. Also would not be surprised if he had been cut

Exactly what I was going to say, likely he has been cut.

I'm going to ask a dumb question here but who would cut a feral hog? And why?

I have a friend in FL/GA that uses dogs for hog hunting, when they catch a smaller boar, they cut them and release to catch again. He says they get huge and don't reproduce ... really mean the second time caught too.

Same reason you would cut any animal you intend to eat later on. My grandfather would do it a lot, probably to give himself something to do than anything else but after trapping them he would kill one or two then and then cut the rest, cut an ear off so he could identify them and turn them back loose. Then later if he was going to shoot one he would only shoot the ones that were missing an ear

I've also heard that after being cut they don't fight over the sows anymore so they grow some impressive dental work.

That's my understanding as well

There's also laws laid out by TAHC regarding the transport and release of ferrel hogs. They aren't regulated by TP&W so much any more, they're more regulated by TAHC.

I once hunted with a group of guys who would routinely cut young boars they had caught in live traps and then use spray paint to mark them so they would recognize them later. A few months later when they showed up at a feeder, they would be shot and cleaned without carrying the rank smell and taste of an uncut boar. Coal oil or diesel would be applied to the wound before being released from the trap.

It takes a guy with the right stuff to crawl into a trap to cut a hog while its head is being held against the side of a trap by others using a rope.