What is Rooting? The Cost of Hog Damage in Texas
If you’ve ever walked a pasture or field and seen the ground torn up like someone ran a plow through it, you’ve seen hog rooting. Rooting is the way wild hogs use their snouts and tusks to dig for food — tearing up soil, grass, and crops in the process.
What is Rooting?
Rooting is when hogs dig into the ground looking for food like roots, grubs, insects, and buried crops. Their strong snouts act like shovels, flipping over dirt and sod in chunks. A single hog can root up large patches of land in one night, and a group of hogs can devastate acres before sunrise.
To a hog, rooting is natural. To landowners, it’s destruction. Rooting leaves behind uneven ground, damaged pastures, destroyed crops, and even hazards for cattle and horses that can injure themselves in the holes.
The Cost of Hog Damage in Texas
Rooting isn’t just ugly — it’s expensive. Feral hog damage in Texas is estimated to cost farmers and landowners over $500 million every year. This includes destroyed crops, damaged fences, eroded soil, and repairs to land torn up by hog activity.
Pastures meant for cattle can be ruined overnight. Hay fields, wheat, corn, and milo are favorite targets. Even lawns, golf courses, and parks suffer when hogs move in and root up the ground.
Beyond the immediate repair costs, rooting also impacts soil health. It disrupts native vegetation, makes it easier for invasive plants to take over, and reduces the land’s ability to support livestock and wildlife.
Why Hog Control Matters
Every night hogs are left unchecked, they breed, spread, and multiply the damage. With no natural predators in Texas and the ability to reproduce quickly, hog populations explode unless active measures are taken.
That’s where professional hog removal comes in. At Pork Police, we don’t just shoot a couple of trophy hogs — we target entire groups to lower population numbers and keep the damage from spreading. Our hunts create a “pressure zone,” forcing hogs to move on and keeping them away from valuable crops and pastures.
Protect Your Land
Rooting is one of the clearest signs that hogs are destroying Texas land, and the longer they stay, the worse it gets. Whether you’re losing crops or dealing with torn-up pastures, stopping hog damage starts with active control.
👉 If you’re seeing rooting on your land, don’t wait until the bill stacks up. Contact Pork Police for hog removal and let our experienced team protect your crops, livestock, and property.