10 Huge Hogs You Have to See to Believe

The average wild hog weighs anywhere from 110-200 pounds and stands about 30 inches at the shoulders, and it’s not uncommon to find pigs that reach 300 pounds.

But sometimes, genetic conditions, predator scarcity, and food availability combine to produce porkers of staggering enormity. Here are 10 such examples, ranked from “smallest” to biggest, all properly verified as best I could*.

1. 410 lbs., taken in Edgecombe County, North Carolina.

Nate C. of Lynchburg, Virginia, took this 410-lb. pig on a plantation in Edgecombe County, North Carolina with his Thompson/Center .50 cal. muzzleloader. Nate’s trail cameras captured images of the big pig, but he seemed to disappear for a whole year. Needless to say, Nate was surprised when the lunker ran into view. When Nate got a broadside shot, he took the opportunity, putting a shot right into the crease of the hog’s shoulder.

___________________________________________________________________________

2. 500 lbs., taken in Bertie County, North Carolina.

Jett W. spotted this stout porker on land leased by the White Oak Ranch Hunting Club. Other hunters had been competing to be the first to shoot it, but Jett was the lucky one, putting a single .308 round into the vitals. Jett didn’t waste any of the meat: the pig fed his family for a year.

___________________________________________________________________________

3. 600 lbs., taken in Grandview, Tennessee.

New Orleans Saints running back Mark Ingram took this humongous hog at the Spartan Hunting Preserve in Tennessee during the NFL off-season. It should be noted that Mark Ingram is 5’10”, 210 lbs.…and he looks like a child next to this beast. Ingram dropped the big boar with one well-placed shot.

___________________________________________________________________________

4. 600 lbs. Hong Kong. Still at large.

This gigantic sow made waves on social media a few months back when Tu Dong of Hong Kong posted this footage of her rooting through garbage near a secondary school. Even if those dumpsters are just four feet high (which would make them very small), the sow measures at least seven feet from base of the tail to tip of the snout, which would likely put her at around 600 lbs. The hog, nicknamed “Pigzilla,” is still at large.

___________________________________________________________________________

5. 733 lbs., taken in Oakdale, California. 

Joe Orth shot this mammoth porker from about 215 yards while on a guided hunt. It was officially weighed at 733 pounds, smashing California’s previous state record by over 100 pounds. 200 pounds of this pig were turned into bratwurst and ground meat.

___________________________________________________________________________

6. 781 lbs., taken in Turkey

Hunters and anglers have been known to…ahem…use forced-perspective photographs to make their quarry look bigger than it really is. So when this picture surfaced on the internet, rumors of an 1,800-pound hog taken in Texas spread like wildfire. After some sleuthing, the image was found to have come from a Turkish company that specialized in guided hunts. In reality, the hog weighed 781 pounds—a far cry from 1,800 pounds—but still good for the largest ever recorded in Turkey.

___________________________________________________________________________

7. 790 pounds. Taken alive in San Antonio, Texas.

Hunters Blaine Garcia and Wyatt Walton teamed up to take this 790-pound monster alive—if you can believe that—with the help of two bulldogs. It lived in a cattle coral for a time. “We may end up selling the hog in the future, but for right now, we’re undecided on what we’re going to do,” Garcia told local news. I’m not sure what happened to the hog after that.

___________________________________________________________________________

8. The original Hogzilla. 800+ Pounds.

Here’s yet another image that fueled wild speculation about the size and weight of this admittedly gigantic boar. Rumors quickly spread of 12-foot, thousand-pound hogs roaming the Georgia swamps. When forensic scientist from National Geographic dug it up, they estimated that it was actually 8 feet long and only weighed about 800 lbs. Still…that’s a humongous hog!

___________________________________________________________________________

9. Now we’re getting controversial. Here’s the NEW Hogzilla. 1,100 lbs., taken in Fayetteville, North Carolina.

This mammoth swine, shot by Bill Coursey of Fayetteville, GA, was heir-apparent to the throne of “Hogzilla.” Bill’s wife and son saw the hog on a neighbor’s property, and Bill asked the neighbor if he could shoot it. The neighbor said yes, so Bill hobbled into position (he was recovering from a broken femur) and took one shot with his Ruger 7mm/08. The beast weighed in at 1,100 lbs. on a certified truck scale.

Just one bit of controversy…biologists determined that the hog was 100% domestic. That said, it DOES have tusks, which, as far as I know, have been bred out of most domestic lines. You be the judge: does this hog deserve a spot on this list?

___________________________________________________________________________

10. This Russian hog supposedly tipped the scales at 1,179 pounds. But is it a hoax? You be the judge.

So here’s the story: Peter Maximov of Chelyabinks, Russia, was hog hunting in one of his favorite spots when he witnessed this monstrosity lumber into view. He shot it once, but the hog seemed unfazed and ran off. After realizing how big the boar was, he called in a forest ranger for help. The two of them picked up a blood trail and followed it to where the hog was bedded down. Maximov shot it again, which only enraged the porcine menace. The third shot finally brought the hog down. The two men tried to move it, but they couldn’t. So they tied it up to Maximov’s truck and dragged it out of the woods.

They took it a nearby town to weigh and measure it. From there, it weighed out to 1,179 pounds, and had a shoulder height of 5.5 feet.

Why we don’t believe it: There’s only one witness, and the weight was never verified by any publication or hunting group as far as I could tell. As I said earlier, Maximov could be manipulating perspective here to make this hog look enormous.

Why we kind of believe it: Maximov isn’t trying to parlay this giant hog into a reality television career. He’s not trying to set any records, and he’s not trying to make money. And it’s not uncommon for domestic pigs to reach insane sizes.

Like, say, for example, Big Bill, who holds the record for biggest pig of all time at a whopping 2,552 POUNDS. Let that sink in. Big Bill’s weight was verified by the Guinness Book of World Records, so it’s no big fish story.

Domestic pigs and wild boars aren’t that far apart genetically. Who’s to say there aren’t a couple of 1,500-pound piney wood rooters out there? Not us.

Oh, and if you DO shoot an enormous hog, get a few pictures of you standing IN FRONT of it, not behind it. At least if you want anyone to believe you.