By Andy Anderson 

The topic of hogs is a familiar one among ranchers and farmers during the morning coffee break. Lately it has been about the use of Kaput, the warfarin based poison. Since the last article announcing the approval by Texas Agricultural Commissioner Sid Miller, several law suits have been filed and a temporary restraining order effectively shut down the sale of the pesticide.

There have also been two bills filed in the House, H.B. 3451 and 1454, both asking for further research by an independent laboratory or university prior to any poison made available to the public. As of now both bills came out of committee on a nine to zero vote and have well over two-thirds of the House sponsoring, both Democrats and Republicans.

Despite the mounting lawsuits and pending bills in the house, the makers of Kaput have carried on hosting town hall meetings to inform farmers and ranchers about the product. During one of these town hall meetings, Kaput came under attack by a number of concerned landowners.

Deryl Markgraf, a passionate hunter and outdoorsman, attended the town hall meeting, confronting the Kaput team and its research. According to the 2015 Kaput study he obtained, Kaput used two treatment areas and one control area.

Kaput counted 354 hogs, with 311 in treatment area one and 42 in treatment area two but only one in control. Kaput deployed 93 feeders for this research on about 2,000 acres. They used 1,707 pounds of bait in the feeders.
In addition, they used corn to condition the hogs to eat out of the feeders (unknown additional cost). They reported 28 dead feral hogs in a four-week time period.

Markgraf was also able to obtain the true cost of Kaput poison and the feeders from the manufacture representatives in attendance. The cheapest feeder is $220 and progresses to as much as $1,500. The cost of the product is $168 for a 25 lb. bucket.

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