Red Wattle

Where it came from is obscure. Red hogs with wattles have been recorded here since at least the mid-1800s, probably arriving through the Gulf of Mexico and spreading inland. Everything registered today traces to wattled pigs found in east Texas: H. C. Wengler bred two wattled red sows to a Duroc boar in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and Robert Prentice found more wattled animals about twenty years later.

The recent history is a near-miss. In the mid-1980s The Livestock Conservancy tried to get Red Wattle breeders to consolidate their efforts, and the breeders preferred to keep their three separate registries. A census in 1990 counted 272 registered purebred offspring. By 1999, when Jerry Russell went looking, he found 42 breeding animals across six breeders, and none of the three registries had registered anything in years.

The Red Wattle Hog Association was founded in 2001 with eight members, and it has kept the breed's pedigree book since 2012.

Big. The Conservancy puts boars at 750 to 800 pounds and sows at 550 to 600, with animals reaching full maturity by age three; exceptional specimens have reached 1,200 pounds, four feet at the shoulder and eight feet long. The color runs from light red to nearly black. Sows farrow 7 to 12 piglets and are known for their mothering.

Docile, mild-tempered, hardy and disease resistant, and rated for beginners.

Meat. The pork is well marbled and tender, often described as beef-like, and the Conservancy lists the breed for bacon, loin, roasts, ham and sausage. It is an excellent forager with a rapid growth rate.

Foraging ground that lets the breed feed itself, and housing and fencing planned for one of the largest hogs on any list; a mature boar runs toward 800 pounds.

Threatened on the Conservation Priority List. The 1999 census is the breed's cautionary tale: registries can exist on paper while the animals disappear. Registration is what makes an animal count toward the breed's survival.

Ask for the registration from the Red Wattle Hog Association and expect a pedigree from its book. The wattles alone prove nothing, because the trait passes to crossbred offspring; a wattled pig without papers is not a registered Red Wattle.

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