Thanksgiving began with a surprise for one Texas County man.
When Darren Ice came out from his house to begin his daily farming routine, he did a double-take as he saw a large wild boar inside a pen among domestic pigs.
“It was about daylight and I was just getting my day started,” Ice said. “One of our pigs was in heat and he was trying to mate with it.”
Ice went back inside and came back out with a rifle.
“He saw me and started running,” he said. “He broke through a fence and kept on going. That’s when I let him have it.”
The intruder bore characteristics of truly wild stock.
“He’s got thick razorback hair and some pretty good tusks,” Ice said. “He doesn’t look to me like he’s cross-bred with a domestic. He looks pretty much full-blooded.”
Ice said he figured the boar weighed about 400 pounds.
“Going by what our domestic pigs weigh, that’s probably pretty close,” he said. “That’s not something you would expect to see on Thanksgiving morning.”