Texas land owners have been given a promising new weapon in the war on Feral hogs called HogStop, and it was dreamed up and overseen by three men who have called Dublin home.
According to the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension service, Texas has the largest population of feral hogs in the United States, causing at least $52 million in damages to Texas farmland annually while also damaging suburban areas and threatening Texas water quality.
HogStop is an all-natural contraceptive bait that works by targeting feral hogs’ exponential ability to grow their numbers.
Feral hogs are able to reproduce every three months, three weeks and three days and have litters of up to 20.
Conservative estimates placed the Texas hog population at 2.6 million in 2012 with numbers only expected to rise and damages to increase.
The problem prompted Dr. Daniel C. Loper, PhD, a ruminant nutritionist, to come up with a solution that he had seen first-hand.
Loper first came to Texas in the 1960’s when he served at Brooks Air Force Base. In his time there, he helped develop the feeding program for the Gemini and Apollo missions and received the Airman’s Medal, a distinction bestowed upon individuals for risking their lives in an act of heroism outside of combat.
Loper earned the medal for saving the wife and four children of a colonel when he spotted them trapped on a station wagon in the midst of flood waters. Loper took the stranded family from their vehicle to a fence in multiple upstream trips, but didn’t learn who they were until the colonel heard of his exploits that day and called the base to reach him.
Following his time in the Air Force, Loper went to work for a feed company at a time when ingredients weren’t readily shared with producers.
“Farmers didn’t know what was actually in the feed ,and the feed companies wouldn’t tell them,” Loper said. This led Loper to start Loper Systems and work with producers on mixing their own high-quality, cost-effective feeds.
The business has been around for nearly 50 years and served 150 dairies in the western half of the United States at its height.
He brought the office to Erath County in 1993 when he moved his family to Dublin to personally oversee their dairy here.
Loper said he remembers his time in Erath fondly and that several of his children claim Dublin as their “hometown.” He has missed the area since moving in 2001.
“Dublin didn’t have a big hog problem when we left in 2001,” Loper remembered. He said that changed by 2005-2006 when he began hearing of producers having pig problems. “The population has just exploded in the past 10 years.”
The hogs carry a number of risks from the possibility of attacks to animals and humans (particularly where babies are present) to contaminating water sources with a number of diseases that are transferable to livestock and humans.
As a longtime nutritionist and former Texas dairy farmer, Loper knew that there were some natural ingredients that affected the sterility of livestock and found one effective in mono gastric animals like hogs, making it an ideal way to fight the rising feral numbers.
The ingredients used in HogStop have also been proven safe for animal consumption and humans harvesting animals who ate them.
When his son, Daniel A. Loper, and a family friend, Dr. Brad Fails, learned of the idea, they thought that it was too good to let die.
“This is a project that was possible with the help of youthful enthusiasm,” said the elder Dan Loper.
The trio started testing formulas to ensure a feed that would be irresistible to hogs while sterilizing them safely and quickly.
Daniel A. Loper said it was quickly realized that all-natural ingredients were required to produce a feed that would stay attractive for longer.
“Oils dispensate after about five days,” said the junior Loper, indicating that the flavor would leave quickly.
His father was in contact with Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller throughout the project and said one of Miller’s initial concerns was whether hogs would eat it.
Once the formula was developed, Fails started providing the feed to hogs, recording data and collecting samples.
The field study of HogStop showed that it reduced male hog fertility after five days of eating the feed and that it maintained fertility interruption for at least 30 days.
The product was released on June 1, 2021 and is being produced entirely within the state as part of the Texas Department of Agriculture’s GoTexan program.
HogStop is produced in cooperation with Hi-Pro Feeds and is available wherever quality Hi-Pro products are sold. (To find a seller near you, visit https://www.hiprofeeds.com/find-a-dealer/ or www.HogStop.com)
HogStop has also formed relationships with the manufacturers, Barclay and WPF, who have each created a feeder designed to target wild pigs so that HogStop is as effective as possible.
Wild pigs have proven to be an invasive threat to the state of Texas and its landowners even if they aren’t always readily seen. HogStop provides a safe solution to a growing problem.
“I’m pretty proud that a couple of guys from Dublin developed this without any outside investors,” said the elder Daniel Loper.
For more information on HogStop bait feed and its partner feeders, visit www.hogstop.com.