“ It ’s a sheep ! It ’s a pig ! Wait … what is that ? ”
The animate being pictured above endure by the name Mangalitsa ( or sometimes Mangalica or Mangalitza ) , and it is , in fact , a pig . But it ’s one befuddled porker . A inheritance engender lard pig , the Mangalitsa was developed in Hungary ( from hardy pigs of Hungarian and Serbian decent ) in the early 1800s . traverse sturdy pigs with hardy pigs make , you guessed it , veryhardy copper . These downhearted - alimony hogs quickly became the most popular porkers in Hungary , where the National Society of Fat - Type Hog Breeders was established in 1927 for the express purpose of improving the strain . It ’s estimated thatthe number of Mangalitsa slovenly person in the country reached 30,000 in 1943 .
It was n’t just their hardiness that made these woolly pigs so popular . Mangalitsa means “ hog with a lot of lard ” in Hungarian , and the name was n’t misleading — there ’s a band of fat under those curly ringlet . While modern squealer farming has moved away fromlard pigsin favor of long , leanHampshires , lard was once cherished for its many uses : cooking , for certain , but it was also crucial for making candles , soap , cosmetic , industrial lubricator and even explosives .
Alas , this nomenclatural feature was also its eventual undoing , as the mid-20th century introduction of hydrogenate vegetable oil ( pair with the Modern aesculapian thinking that saturated fats were bad for health ) meant lard - producing livestock diminish out of favour . The break of the day of industrial farming , too , had begin , and the slowly - grow , pasture - prime Mangalitsa did n’t operate for farmers who want fast , barn - raised pork .
And that ’s how we almost lost what was once Hungary ’s favored pig to defunctness — in 1990 , there were n’t even 200 examples of the breed live on the planet .
A Mangalitsa Comeback Tale
Luckily , that ’s not where the story stop . A Hungarian brute geneticist refer Peter Toth saw the border on end of the Mangalitsa line and sought as many purebred pigs as he could find . He launched a breeding computer programme on a whitewashed farm in Debrecen , Hungary , and finally founded a company around the endeavor , Olmos and Toth , which breeds and raises the hog for high - quality ham . Olmos and Toth also works extensively to bear on and advertise the heritage breed .
Today , Mangalitsas are back . More than 160 breeding sites exist in Hungary , and the breed has of late become popular in other countries , even as far away as the U.S. Putnam , a stock breeder in Washington nation , imported a herd of 24 from Austria in 2007 . Marc Santucci and Wilhelm Kohl of Pure Mangalitsa imported six more to Michigan in 2010 , and more were imported stateside in 2014 and 2016 . Since then , the breed ’s popularity has spread across the U.S.
The Hobby Farm Pig
So are wooly pigs right for you ? They are , avowedly , well suit for hobby farm , where bottom telephone line are less crucial than they are to dedicated meat producers . They take much longer to produce out than white pigs , requiring more than a year to reach 300 pound , which is when their distinct adipose tissue marbling is at its pinnacle , double the 5 or 6 months that other pigs require to reach adulthood . Their litters are also little than innovative Sus scrofa , unremarkably around five to eight per farrowing .
But , oh , how they ’re suited for hobby farm ! Mangalitsas , aside from being an interesting addition to a farm , are a hearty , low - maintenance breed . But they are n’t no - criminal maintenance — while you ’ll commonly find claims across the internet that these squealer demand no shelter , the the true is that even a slob with a protective coat such as the Mangalitsa needs a dry , shady shelter to escape inclement atmospheric condition . ( According to Barbara Meyer zu Altenschildesche of Royal Mangalitsa in the Netherlands , “ In Hungary , they all have stalls . Not a individual hog there has no protection , and I have visit dozens of farms there . ” )
They ’re excellent forager who render much of their own feed if given adequate land to roam . you’re able to rush up their growth rate by allow somebarley , straw , Medicago sativa , wheat bran or sunflower seeds , though soya bean and corn whisky are n’t recommended.(Some people track them withBerkshirepigs , too , for a full - season , but quicker - growing pig . ) Mangalitsas have an easy disposition , and they ’re really beautiful to depend at . They have curly , wooly coat of red , calamitous and , most ordinarily , blond .
last , the meat is scrumptious — it turn out that fatty tissue is nip , and these lardy pigs have plenty of both . ( There ’s a reasonableness bragging - name chef have rushed to get Mangalitsa pork on their menus . ) These slovenly person make amazing hams and sausage , and the stomach and loins are succulent roasted .
