Some history of the Red Wattle Hog

There are many variations and no one is certain how exactly they got here. Here is the general concensus though:

The History of the Red Wattle is not clear. There are lots of possibilities on who, what, where, and when. What is clear however is that H.C.Wengler of Texas found a few and started redeveloping the breed in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. He founded the “Wengler Red Waddle Hog”. Notice the spelling with “dd” instead of “tt” he did that so his line could be kept separate from the rest. Mr. Wengler is credited with starting the Red Wattle movement. When the hog market went crazy in the early 1980’s another line of Red Wattle’s emerged. The Timberline. Robert Prentice found this herd in East Texas as well and named it as such because of the woods there. During this time the Red Wattles were used on lots of farms as crosses. Providing bigger, leaner hogs. At one point there were over 100 people involved with Red Wattles. The American Livestock Breed Conservancy held a meeting in the mid 1980’s to help unify the breeders, but most did not see the reason. In 1990 the ALBC’s report showed 272 purebred offspring. In 1999 however there were only 42 breeding animals left belonging to 6 breeders. Since that time there have been a few more people involved but the Red Wattle’s numbers have not really increased very much.

Intentions

I am creating this blog to help with the preservation of the wonderful Red Wattle Hogs. I am currently doing all I can to save them. They are critically endangered by the American Breeds Livestock Conservancy http://www.albc-usa.org. You can also learn more about them at http://www.redwattlehogs.com.

If anyone knows of any of these anywhere please post here I am trying to find everyone that is left which is not many.

Jessie