04/25/2026
There are a few feral hogs in the fallow pasture adjacent to us on the west. We never had to worry about them breaching our perimeter fence because we have LGDs in most pastures, and they are a serious deterrent. When we bought this property, we put up 5' tall "no climb" woven wire fencing on T-posts because we knew from experience this would be a good option with our Nigerian Dwarf goats and LGDs. But when we added longhorns, they proved to be harder on the fence than we could ever have imagined. They lean on it, reaching toward grass/weeds on the other side, because of course, they think the grass is greener on the other side. 🙄 After a few years of this, some of the T-posts were leaning at something like a 60-70 degree angle -- just enough to create a gap at the bottom, where the fence no longer touches the ground.
We have one small pasture that we only rotate goats and LGDs in occasionally, just enough to keep the pasture cropped. We had put our longhorn bull in this pasture for a while, and he damaged the fence enough that we had to take it out of rotation, because goats and LGDs alike could fit under the fence. Before we could get a contractor out here to take care of the fence, the feral hogs realized there were no longer any LGDs in this pasture, and they came under the fence. I've only ever seen three feral hogs at a time in the neighboring pasture, but they rooted up the soil and made it look like there had been a dozen or more hogs tearing things up. We bit the bullet and spent the money to put up pipe fencing with both top and bottom rails, with no-climb attached to it. It was expensive, but it was the only way to keep the longhorns from doing further damage. Well -- maybe it wasn't he only way? Some people have had luck with multi-strand hot wire, but for us, pipe seemed like the best option.
Considering how much damage was done by just a few feral hogs, I can't even begin to imagine how awful it would be to have as many as you can see in this photo. There may be more feral hogs in the adjacent pasture than I've ever seen, so I'm grateful that the combination of good fencing and working LGDs in the pasture keeps the hogs away from our place.
In East Texas, a sounder of feral hogs dismantled a multi-million dollar residential golf course in under 48 hours. The destruction looked like a "fleet of rogue rototillers," as the hogs used their powerful snouts to flip thousands of square feet of expensive Bermuda sod to reach grubs beneath.
The damage went beyond the surface; the hogs targeted subterranean irrigation lines, crushing PVC pipes and snapping sprinkler heads, which caused massive flooding. By excavating under the pavement, they also caused newly paved golf cart paths to crack and collapse. Total repairs for the single weekend were estimated in the tens of thousands of dollars.
Texas A&M AgriLife experts cite this as a prime example of why feral hogs are North America's most destructive invasive species. Beyond property damage, their rooting causes silt runoff that clogs community filtration systems. This case, documented by the Texas Department of Agriculture, highlights the relentless physical power of an animal that costs the U.S. billions in annual infrastructure damage.
