A Shot to the Snout
Snouters limited pigs’ ability to root; kept ‘em down on the farm
By James N. Boblenz
What in the world is a pig snouter? A device used to cut a hog’s snout to control its rooting. Hogs are not native to North America. When the first Europeans came to this continent, they brought domestic animals from their homelands. Among those animals were horses, cattle, sheep, goats and hogs. In Florida, free-range cattle were a challenge to round up. Each year, Florida cowboys (crackers) began the roundup by driving cattle out of the lowlands, swamps and brush. They cracked long bullwhips to move individual animals out of the brush and assemble them into large herds to drive to market.