# domestic pigs with wild boar?



## sugarsandsranch (Oct 29, 2012)

Hi all. Very new to this board, and I am looking for advice. I am not entirely new to pigs, as we have hada single pet pig for the last 5 years until she choked on some feed and passed away, but I have never owned more than one pig at a time. Here's the deal.....
Last winter a hunter brought us a baby wild hog, he had shot the Mama I guess and this little baby was there, so he brought it over. WE figured we could grow it up to size then butcher him. He nursed with a litter of puppies on our dog, and grew up in the house for a while. In the spring we moved
him into his own pen outside, and he still roams the yard some with our dogs. (he kind of thinks he is a dog). WE live in N Fla, so I guess the type he is, is one of those razorback, wild hogs that roam up here. He was a little stripey guy when he was small, now he is mostly darker brown and blackish. He is almost a year old now, getting Very big,(almost 180 lbs I guess) and it is probably just about butcher time for Puumba. BUT.....
My 9 year old went to the livestock auction a few weeks ago, and brought home 2 six month old pink pigs. They are still at my neighbors house, we havent brought them here yet. He has decided he wants to breed Puumba to them, and if all goes well, we raise the babies for food, and Puumba gets to live on as a stud boar. (I believe the family has gotten slightly attatched to him). And because he is already so friendly, it seems easier than raising a new pig to breed them to. He gets along with all of my livestock (cats, dogs, chickens, ducks, horses,goats and llamas.) Sometimes he and a dog will have a slight tiff, but they are over it in seconds. (Usually he is trying to get their food, and they retaliate)
So here are my questions....can this even be done? How do you introduce pigs? Do they just get along with each other, or can they fight like dogs? Can wild boar co habit with domestic pigs? Will he hurt them? Should I wait till they are older? 
I know these might be strange questions, but there is not alot of info online about introducing wild boars to domestic pigs, or even keeping adult boars as pets, or breeding stock.
I guess he thinks he is ready to breed, because he has a tire in his pen he has started doing the wild thing on..lol..
Thanks so much in advance.
Tawnya


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## gerold (Jul 18, 2011)

I would breed the pink pigs to regular farm boar. You can breed the wild pig to them but the offspring may not grow very fast and will be a bit small. The meat will be leaner than a farm pig with less favor. 

Best,
Gerold.


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## BobbyB (Apr 6, 2009)

Not sure where the less flavor comes from with a wild hog. Ive eaten more than I can count and they are all great eating. One caught wild and them cleaned out on corn is about as good as it comes. 

But, if you cross one on a tame hog, you will get a longer head/snout and much less butt, meaning smaller hams. That is a guarantee.


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## KSALguy (Feb 14, 2006)

your "wild" boar is just a domestic gone feral for several generations, Hogs will revert to feral life really really fast, he MIGHT MAYBE POSSIBLY have some russian wild hog in the mix some place but not likely, he will breed the pink pigs no problem and they will grow into pork, genetics is a crazy thing, they could take after what ever is in his mix or they could take after the pink side more, if fed well they will grow well enough but will most likely not ever be huge market weight, if thats ok then go ahead and do it, its your pork use it how YOU want,


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## sugarsandsranch (Oct 29, 2012)

HOW do I put them together? Do pigs just get along like goats, or do I have to intro them like rottweilers?? LOL, I have never had more than 1 pig at a time. I'm not so worried about them tasting like wild hog, we alot of hunted wild hog anyways...This was more my sons way of giving Puumba a purpose on the farm, instead of on the table..ha ha..kids are funny that way, but he did throw in the argument, how much MORE he could contribute to dinner, if we bred him to these new little girl piggies he bought..Smart kid!


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## Fineswine (Aug 25, 2011)

These are hard questions to get a awnser on because not many people have done this.I think they will fight like pitbulls when introduced.Hogs are herd animals and whenever somone new is introduced,they have to figure out a pecking order like chickens do.I personaly would eat the wild boar,and if I wanted to breed the pink pigs,have semen shipped to my door.That way you save alot of feed,fencing and time and end up with full cuts of pork.
Although your son has some arguements,they are not cost effective.Feeding a boar to breed to 2 pigs is a total waste of feed money when you can buy semen for $20 a dose and somtimes even less.....some points to think about anyway.


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## highlands (Jul 18, 2004)

KSL is correct. The 'wild' pig is merely a domestic pig gone feral. In the wild the high survival traits tend to come back out because evolution selects for survivability. 

In terms of breeding, you could breed it with your farm style pigs but does it carry the traits you want to produce? If not then it would take years of selection to get back to farm traits. From a breeding program point of view he's probably not desireable, unless you're looking to have hogs that thrive in the wild as opposed to having the kinds of larger cuts and growth. You see, he's a bit on the small side. At one year our farm pig boars are more like 350 to 400 lbs on pasture. At 180 lbs he's only half the size they are in the same time.

Fineswine is correct about the economics. The rule of thumb is it takes six to ten sows to justify keeping a boar when feeding commercial grain based feeds. On pasture perhaps three sows justify a boar.

Cheers,

-Walter Jeffries
Sugar Mountain Farm
Pastured Pigs, Sheep & Kids
in the mountains of Vermont
Sugar Mountain Farm | All Natural Pastured Pigs, Poultry, Sheep, Dogs and Kids in the mountains of Vermont


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## BobbyB (Apr 6, 2009)

I am guessing farther north, a wild hog could be described as a domestic hog gone feral for a few generations.

Down here, we have descendents of the hogs that the Spaniards brought to this country back when.

Same scenario I guess, but they have been here so long that they are truly wild game, although the Parks and Wildlife considers them " exotics ". 

They have heads as long as your leg and buts about the width of a big phone book thickness. 

The meat isn't white like tame hogs, but more to the red side. And it is tasty as it can be. I attribute that to the varied diet . Wild plums and persimmons make for a tasty hog. Toss in wild garlic and acorns and man o man, its hard to beat

But there is no way I breed one to a tame hog and think I was improving anything. Ive seen first crosses and there isnt much difference between them and a feral hog.


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## Fineswine (Aug 25, 2011)

Since Bobby mentioned that,it made me remember that there is a local guy who took a registered Tamworth boar and trapped a young wild gilt and bred them.He calls himself the Happy Farmer and sells the hell out of them for good darn money as butcher/bbq hogs.His "marketing sceme" is that they convert feed better than farm hogs and taste so much better,he swears.He also sells breeding age gilts out of this breeding for $400 and up,and he sells them like hotcakes.The darndest thing Ive ever heard but its true.I know at one time he had 2 or 300 and 2 months later he was down to 25-30 and was building a new barn/processing building so somone surely was buying them.Not saying this would work for the origional poster,but it is being done.Another note,I dont know what breed of wild hogs we have up here in Virginia,but its rumored a elderly fella passed away and no one found him for weeks,meanwhile,he's hogs excaped(over 100) and turned into a major problem years later.....


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## BobbyB (Apr 6, 2009)

Fineswine said:


> Since Bobby mentioned that,it made me remember that there is a local guy who took a registered Tamworth boar and trapped a young wild gilt and bred them.He calls himself the Happy Farmer and sells the hell out of them for good darn money as butcher/bbq hogs.His "marketing sceme" is that they convert feed better than farm hogs and taste so much better,he swears.He also sells breeding age gilts out of this breeding for $400 and up,and he sells them like hotcakes.The darndest thing Ive ever heard but its true.I know at one time he had 2 or 300 and 2 months later he was down to 25-30 and was building a new barn/processing building so somone surely was buying them.Not saying this would work for the origional poster,but it is being done.Another note,I dont know what breed of wild hogs we have up here in Virginia,but its rumored a elderly fella passed away and no one found him for weeks,meanwhile,he's hogs excaped(over 100) and turned into a major problem years later.....


Kinda getting away for the OP, but there used to be a whale of a market for feral hogs. Buying stations all over TX and the bigger and ranker the boar, the higher the price. they were processed and sent to Europe. France being a big buyer of the meat.

These days the buying stations are still here, but price is way down and they are usually buying only a few months a year.

Gimmicks always sell. I really cant see the conversion thing. Taste yes since they tend to be darker meat. But Like I said, they tend to be long in the head and snout and thin in the hams.


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## sugarsandsranch (Oct 29, 2012)

Well I have learned some as for differences in meat. We usually eat a couple of hunted hogs a year anyways so I believe the family will be okay with taste, color, flavor etc on the meat.
We were not really looking to start a business (as interesting an idea that is), we just wanted to raise a few piglets to put in our freezer, and find the wild hog we raised a purpose on the farm, so that he might remain a pet, but give a little something back to justify feeding him. (He actually feeds himself right now on roots, and a ton of acorns that have fallen around our property).
Someone mentioned that they would probably fight like pitbulls, trying to put them together...Is this the general opinion when/if it comes to introducing him to the "pink" girl pigs? Should I try keeping them in side by side pens for a while first, or will that just build up too much anxiety? As I mentioned before he gets along with our current livestock, and dogs and cats, BUT those animals have been there since he was a baby, and if I bring the girl pigs home, they will be new almost adult pigs. That is my worry.
I know this whole idea probably sounds silly to anybody who raises pigs for a living, and it is not the most economical way to raise pigs, but he has kind of made his way into our family. Silly, I know, as he is a hog, but he's kind of a sweet hog...lol


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## KSALguy (Feb 14, 2006)

its your farm, your pigs, your call, if its what you want to do then go for it, 

once the pinkies are old enough to breed that will make them all want to be friends, but what i would do is pen them side by side for a few days and see how it goes, then introducethem, they are social animals and should develope a herd social order of their own soon enough, there will likely be some scuffling but sense its two females and one male it shouldnt be too bad,


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## haypoint (Oct 4, 2006)

Without seeing your "wild Hog", I can't say that it is a domestic hog gone feral. Wild Hogs are common in many southern states and are a hundred generations away from domestic hogs. 
Too bad you have an attachment to to him. He should be shot. No need to waste money on feed that will be poorly converted to pork when better growing options are available.


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## Fineswine (Aug 25, 2011)

I dont understand why somone would ask for opinions if they had there mind made up about what they was going to do anyway.I dont fall in love with food personaly intill it's on a plate.


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## highlands (Jul 18, 2004)

> The meat [of feral hogs] isn't white like tame hogs, but more to the red side.


Our domestic farm hogs have red meat, not white. It looks more like beef than the conventionally raised pork.

The white of conventional pork perhaps from the confinement industry and soy/corn feeding. A feral hog isn't getting the confinement or the corn/soy diet. A researcher once suggested that hogs out on pasture may be getting more exercise which leads to more vascularization of the muscles and thus the reader meat in addition to the differences in feed.

An interesting test would be to take some feral hogs, raise them in confinement and feed them from birth to market on corn/soy commercial hog feeds to see what they come out like.


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## Fineswine (Aug 25, 2011)

highlands said:


> A researcher once suggested that hogs out on pasture may be getting more exercise which leads to more vascularization of the muscles and thus the reader meat in addition to the differences in feed.


That actually does make scence.


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