highlights in the hair in MONTERVILLE highlights in the hair MONTERVILLE

highlights in the hair in MONTERVILLE

highlights in the hair MONTERVILLE

highlights in the hair in MONTERVILLE.Also known as the pineywoods guinea, guinea forest hog, acorn eater, and yard pig, the breed was once the most numerous pig breed found on homesteads in the southeast.
Today there are fewer than 200.
Hogs were imported from west africa and the canary islands to america in conjunction with the slave trade.
The imports were documented as early as 1804 by thomas jefferson and other virginia farmers.
These large, square animals were called red guineas, because they had red or sandy colored hair.
Red guineas were common throughout the midatlantic region during the 1800s.
The breed disappeared as a distinct population in the 1880s, when most of the red breeds and types of hogs in the eastern united states were combined to form the new jerseyduroc breed.
Although extremely rare, occasionally guinea hog breeders of today find red highlights in the hair of their guineas and even more rare, is a completely red individual born.
Guinea hogs were expected to forage for their own food, eat rodents and other small animals, grass, roots, and nuts, and clean out garden beds.
The hogs were also kept in the yard where they would eat snakes and thus create a safe zone around the house.
These guineas were hardy and efficient, gaining well on the roughest of forage and producing the hams, bacon, and lard essential for subsistence farming.
Guinea hogs were widespread, and descriptions of them varied.
Generally, the hogs were small, weighing 100300 pounds, and black or bluishblack in color.
They had upright ears, a hairy coat, and a curly tail.
Since most of these are extinct, it is now impossible to weave together all the threads of the guinea hog story into a single neat piece.
The guinea hog became rare in recent decades as the habitat of the homestead hog disappeared, and it survived only in the most isolated parts of the southeast.
During the 1980s, new herds of guinea hogs were established, partly in response to the pet pig market.
Essex hogs were known to exist in the southeast until about 1900.
Though the guinea hog would greatly benefit from additional research and description, it is clear that the breed is genetically distinct from improved breeds of hogs and merits conservation.
Like other traditional lardtype breeds, however, the guinea hog faces great obstacles to its conservation.
These hogs do not produce a conventional market carcass, since they are smaller and more fatty than is preferred today.
Guinea hogs are, however, appropriate for use in diversified, sustainable agriculture.
Under such husbandry, guinea hogs would thrive, as they always have.