As a new farming season begins, Adams County farmer Mike Guedon is planting 800 acres of corn, beans and cotton with hopes that what happened last season doesn’t happen again.

Last year, Guedon had to replant 150 acres of corn after wild hogs rooted up his efforts before the plants grew out of the ground.

“It’s $100 an acre every time we have to replant,” he said.

That means Guedon lost $15,000 to wild hogs last year. He’s one of several local farmers and property owners whose land or crops have suffered damage from wild hogs.

Adams County Extension Service Agent David Carter said the wild hog population in the county has surged in recent years.

“They absolutely create havoc for everyone from farmers to landowners and hunters,” Carter said.

Wild hogs will root up crop seeds and also eat crops after they have matured, Carter said.

Concordia Parish farmer John Lackey said hogs have also harmed his efforts, forcing him to replant and rework rows of corn near Deer Park. His damage was less widespread than Guedon’s.

“We never had to replant that many acres, but we had to go back in and rework some places we were having problems with because hogs had rooted up the ground,” he said. “We had to go back over a little more than 100 acres year before last because of it.”

Animal farmers and anyone handling wild hogs also face dangers from bacteria and diseases hogs can  carry.

Wild hogs carry pseudorabies that can infect dogs, cattle and domestic swine, as well as brucellosis, which can be spread to humans, said Bill Hamrick, extension associate within Mississippi State’s Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Aquaculture. Hamrick is also the lead author of the Landowner’s Guide for Wild Pig Management publication from the Mississippi State University Extension and Alabama Cooperative Extesion services.

Hamrick said if body fluids from a wild hog infected with brucellosis splash into a person’s eyes or enter the body through open cuts, that person can be infected.

“Brucellosis is debilitating,” he said. “It’s like the flu that you have for several days and then it comes back.”

Hamrick said people infected with brucellosis sometimes don’t show symptoms for several months.

“It can be treated, but it’s kind of an expensive series of treatments,” he said. “It’s not just like going to the doctor and getting a cheap antibiotic.”

Hamrick recommends wearing rubber gloves and eye protection when butchering and cleaning wild hogs and thoroughly disinfecting the area.

In addition to health concerns, hogs also create environmental issues. Rooting by wild hogs can cause erosion on levees and roadsides.

Carter said wild hogs have rooted up sections of several dirt roads in Adams County.

Carter said he has also visited residences where yards had been rooted up by wild hogs, including one on Robin’s Lake Road.

“There wasn’t a single blade of grass left,” he said.

Wild hogs also affect other wildlife because they are competing for food sources.

The turkey population has declined in Adams County, Carter said, which correlates with the rise of the wild hog population.