As long as they can find water they will thrive and flourish in the harshest of environments. Under normal conditions their population will increase at astonishing rates. A young sow is capable of breeding at six months of age but will normally have her first litter of pigs at eight to ten months, provided there is good nutrition. Under poor habitat conditions, sows have been known to eat their young. The average survival rate of a litter is approximately four to six pigs, but under good conditions may be as many as ten or twelve.
Sows usually have two litters per year, roughly half males and half females.
The production peaks in the early spring. However, if a sow has a litter in early January, she will have two more litters before the end of the year. When you put a pencil to those numbers, you can see why that there are so many wild hogs running around down here. They performed a study in 1991 and it was estimated, back then , that there were over one million feral hogs in Texas alone . There Is no way of knowing exactly how many hogs there are in and area as large as Texas, but these people make It their business to get a close count.