What would you consider essential equipment to start a feral hog removal business these days, and approximately how much should a person expect to spend gearing up?

I’m talking about buying modern equipment. Drop gates or drop traps, wireless cameras, etc.

Also, do you consider night shooting an integral part of feral hog removal, or is it simply another tool?


Part of why I am asking is due to my own possible future interest, but the primary reason I’m asking is so that people will know. Customers searching for answers will see that startup is very expensive, thus justifying the prices charged, and people considering doing it will see what they need to get to do it right. Hog populations multiply so quickly, and they cause so much damage that it’s important that it’s done right the first time when someone is serious about taking action.



Thanks for the input

I will guess: Begin with a nice new Super Duty crew cab one ton dually diesel Fx4 with an aluminum flat bed, then add about $5,000 trailer, then add $25,000 worth of traps and cameras. Top it off with a used .22 pump rifle from a flea market for $35.
Total = $115,035.00
Is my guess close?

Is trapping hogs one of the great ways to become a millionaire? Similar to trapping raccoons for the fur market, or cutting and selling firewood?

I’ll venture a guess and say that the only trappers becoming millionaires are the ones that trap people and get paid a ransom, like in the movies.

Essential Equipment is one rich old woman, slightly touched in the brain, who will pay for everything, because if you have the money to lose on ADC, you are the one touched in the brain.

Best way to have a $1 million after a year of ADC trapping is to start with $2 million.

It would probably be wise to go to the beach instead of starting a feral hog control business. The scenery would sure be better. I am one to talk as I only live about an hour from Daytona Beach.

Essential equipment would be numerous IR or cellular cameras to perform a continuous animal survey at all active hog feeding and travel areas and preferably enough traps to set every known wild hog hang out on your designated property at one time. I have/use both portable traps and coral style traps. The coral style trap is better for several reasons. I have cellular wireless control units that I can move around and deploy as needed.

The process is to first identify how many hogs there are in the area/on the property so as you have a target number. You need to know are you after 10 or 50 or 100?? That info will help to later determine the degree of success. I record all of the camera data by numbers, sex, size, color, markings, identifiable marks, etc. and update my info as I remove animals and/or see new ones. Seldom will you get them all and even if you do, new ones will move in the weeks or months that follow. It's an endless stream.

The first assault should be with as many traps as needed to cover all active areas. Overkill on trap numbers is sometimes a good idea. The idea is to catch as many as you can in all areas, as quickly as you can. Reason being is that the ones that aren't caught on the first assault can/will likely become very wise and trap shy. Those are much more difficult to catch, just like coyotes.

Cellular wireless cameras and traps give you real time data and the ability to fire the traps from home. The remotely controlled cellular wireless traps also eliminate the possibility of having deer or other non targets either trip the trap (requiring you to make a trip to reset) or get caught in the traps. It's pretty cool to sit at home watching the animals on the cameras and be ready to fire the trap when it is exactly the right time. The "right time" to trigger a cellular trap is only when every hog in the group is well inside the trap. This is accomplished by pre-baiting for an extended period of time (days/weeks) and until the entire group gets comfortable with going into and feeding inside the trap. All of this will unfold on the cameras you have monitoring your traps.

Gun hunts and dog hunts have limited productivity and I resort to those methods only when I have something I cannot catch. The dogs or gun(s) will catch/kill one or two or a small number and the rest are doing 100mph in all directions. Scattering the hogs all over the countryside is not productive. It is more fun though.

I think the USDA here went exclusively to corral traps as single hog traps just educated the rest of the hogs.