Large Black

It worked. By 1900 it was one of the most numerous pig breeds in England. The breed society formed in 1898 and published the first herd book in 1899, and by 1913 the regional types had settled into one breed. Smallholders used it for pork and bacon, and commercially it was crossed with the Large White, which Americans call the Yorkshire, for the hybrid vigor.

The 1920s were the peak, and it was exported to Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Germany, New Zealand, South Africa and the United States. Then pig farming moved indoors after the Second World War, and a breed built for outdoors had nothing to offer it. Britain's 1955 Howitt Report discouraged all but three breeds, the Large Black not among them; it nearly died out in Britain in the 1960s and went onto the Rare Breeds Survival Trust's list when the Trust formed in 1973.

Large Blacks came back to the US in the 1950s and again in the 1990s, kept by a small number of breeders for the flavor of the pork.

A long, deep-bodied pig, black throughout with blue-black skin, and large, thin lop ears that fall forward over the face. The Livestock Conservancy puts boars at 750 pounds and sows at 650; Wikipedia's figures run lighter, 306 kg for boars and 250 kg for sows, about 675 and 550 pounds.

Sows farrow litters of 8 to 10 piglets, sometimes up to 13, with a strong maternal instinct; one recorded sow farrowed 26 litters between 1940 and 1952.

Among the most docile and friendly of hogs, and easily contained by fencing. The lop ears fall over the eyes and limit what the pig sees, so give it warning before you handle it. The Conservancy rates the breed for beginners.

Pork and bacon off pasture, and lard. The commercial pattern of its heyday, a Large Black sow crossed to a Large White for hybrid vigor, still works; the purebred trade today is flavor-driven.

Ground. This is a large-framed pig built to forage outdoor systems, so judge one on whether you have the pasture for it.

The Large Black is Critical on the Conservation Priority List. The UK registered 2,195 animals in 1954 and 421 in 2011; the US had roughly 300 breeding hogs in 2008, and the largest population outside Britain is in Argentina.

Ask for the registration. The Large Black Hog Association maintains the breed in the US, and in a population this small the pedigree is most of what you are buying.

Then ask about your own ground: a 650 pound outdoor sow needs acreage, and the breed only makes sense raised the way it was built to be raised.

Recent sale prices on HoofnHorn, where there are any, are further down this page.