# Is there really anything special about mangalitsa's etc?



## dyrne (Feb 22, 2015)

So.. I've never really looked at specific pig breeds but I'm thinking of being a little picky next time and am looking at all the heritage breeds. Darker super marbled meat sounds great... anyone have experience with these vs say herefords or more common breeds and actually found them to be different on the same feed? I'm just looking at getting a handful of them and raising in a pastured / kitchen and garden scraps situation.


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## highlands (Jul 18, 2004)

Darker meat comes from feed and exercise as well as age. Many breeds get that in time on pasture.

Manga are a lard pig. Find if you want a lot of fat. Slow growth though.

I raise Yorkshire, Berkshire, Large Black, Tamworth, our cross lines and a few GOS & Duroc on a high pasture diet (80%pasture, 7%dairy, veggies, fruit, etc, no commercial feed, see http://SugarMtnFarm.com/pigs and read the diet section). The line of the pig makes more difference than the breed on this issue.


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## Ronney (Nov 26, 2004)

Your answer is in highland's post. Over 40-odd years of keeping pigs, I've had all those mentioned. I finally settled on Duroc and Yorkshire (which we call Large White) and the cross of both because that's what suited what we did and I liked the temperament. Choice of breed is a personal thing in all types of animal and doesn't necessarily mean that one is better than the other. Do your research on here, via Google and just by talking to people generally and then start experimenting until you find what suits you. 

Have fun, because pigs are fun animals to have around

Cheers,
Ronnie


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## haypoint (Oct 4, 2006)

Earning anything above market price involves salesmanship. Salesmanship can include education and it can include questionable benefits, stretched truth.
A guy in Michigan is marketing these harry, lard type Mangalitsas to upscale chefs. A guy in the northeast is marketing pork at a premium because he says they are pasture raised. That's salesmanship. It is often the difference between a profit or a loss.
You might get a sales increase by promoting your pork as not fed gluten or no growth hormones or antibiotic free, but the pork in the store is also those same things.
Many breeders of rare breed Mangalitsas depend on salesmanship to market their breeding stock, so promotions will exceed reality.


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## jkleven (Feb 28, 2016)

dyrne said:


> So.. I've never really looked at specific pig breeds but I'm thinking of being a little picky next time and am looking at all the heritage breeds. Darker super marbled meat sounds great... anyone have experience with these vs say herefords or more common breeds and actually found them to be different on the same feed? I'm just looking at getting a handful of them and raising in a pastured / kitchen and garden scraps situation.


Mangalitsa is an extreme lard breed that easily develops a large amount of fat, both exterior and intramuscular. As I understand it, this fat is not like the gristly fat that develops on a commercial type lean hog, (when fattened correctly) Mangalitsa fat is completely different and widely regarded as the finest pork fat of all. While a pigs diet is surely important in determining the quality of the final product, genetics play a large part as well when talking about a breed like Mangalitsa, it's just a totally different creature than a lean hog. If you were comparing a Hampshire to a Duroc or a Hereford I'd agree that diet is going to be the primary difference.

The difference doesn't lie just in the fat either. The meat of pure Mangalitsa is often described as dark, gamey, rich, greasy, ect, much different than "the other white meat" that Americans have come to expect from pork. A quick Google search will show you lots of photographs comparing the meats of different hog breeds including Mangalitsa. You'll see that a Mangalitsa has a very high percentage of fat and this fat needs to be marketed properly, butchered correctly and used entirely in order to make the breed economically viable to raise.

I've been working on breeding my own cross that is a blend of Mangalitsa and Berkshire with the goal of producing a pig that develops intramuscular fat/marbling at a relatively young age, has a darker, redder meat and higher quality and healthier fat than you find on commercial pork. My fist farrow-to-finish F1 cross barrows will be ready to butcher pretty soon so I'll be sure to take lots of pictures and do some taste testing and post results here for comparison.


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## gerold (Jul 18, 2011)

dyrne said:


> So.. I've never really looked at specific pig breeds but I'm thinking of being a little picky next time and am looking at all the heritage breeds. Darker super marbled meat sounds great... anyone have experience with these vs say herefords or more common breeds and actually found them to be different on the same feed? I'm just looking at getting a handful of them and raising in a pastured / kitchen and garden scraps situation.



Hereford pigs does have a darker red meat then Yorks. I have raised both and butchered hundreds of them. 
I have been working for the past 3 years on a 
Hereford/Gloucester cross. Very nice butcher hog with good fat red lean meat. 
My pigs are on pasture. Butcher hogs for the last 45 days are penned up and fatten up on a corn mix. This makes for a lots of fat in the meat (more favor). Hard to beat.


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## krackin (Nov 2, 2014)

Glad I came back to this post. I have the cutest lil' Hereford gilt you ever saw. About 6 months. I never saw such a spirited pig, acts like a dog, friendly, docile and exuberant when the mood strikes. 12 teats I think. 

I introduced her and a few others into a corn grazing herd after 4 weeks quarantine. She being joyous and naive, and myself being amazed at the integration, got sideswiped. Momentarily. 

One of the big barrows charged out of the standing corn, knocked lil' Sassy Pants to the ground and started having at her ears. Wrong. Bad move. Stupid move. Sassy Pants got up after 10 seconds or so and laid into that twice her size barrow like she was going to eat that sob. I mean hard. Bad. The chase was on for the day. You can still hear that squeal echoing around the farm after 2 months. She still likes her space but doesn't take flack. Her best friend, excepting me, is a slightly older landrace gilt about twice her size. 16 teat. 

Had a boar lined up, developed a cough, and the owner responsibly backed out. 

How is that for thread drift? Actually I was getting to the Hereford Gloucester cross to try for a generation or two, out the door now.


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