Guinea Hog

Facts about Guinea Hogs, Guinea Hog is a domestic pig breed that is native to the United States of America. The Guinea Hogs are small in size and they are also commonly called as the Guinea Forest hog, the Pineywoods Guinea, the Yard pig and the Acorn Eater. Though the Guinea Hog carries the term Guinea in its name, the Guinea Hog breed does not relate to Guinea in any way. Actually, the base stock of the Guinea Hog breed is considered to be derived from West Africa. Once the Guinea Hog was the most abundant pig class, which were largely found on homesteads in the Southeast, but currently, their population has been reduced to below 200.

History of Guinea Hog

The name, Guinea Hog derives from the sources of the Guinea hog, existed in the Guinea coastline of West Africa. The exact African Guinea hogs are a big, red breed with erect ears, coarse hair and elongated tails, signifying hereditary influence of the Black pig or the Ashanti pig of Nigeria. The Guinea Hog were transported to the United States on slave boats. About 1804, the Founding Father of America, Thomas Jefferson purchased a few of the Guinea Hogs that came from Africa through the Canary Isles. The unique strain, even though the Guinea Hog are basically black in color, these transported pigs had a hint of red, as well. The Guinea Hog were thus called Red Guineas, and that strain, famous at the commencement of the 19th century, is destroyed.

Later, the Guinea Hogs were crossed with other pig breeds, as well as Essex pigs, Appalachian English pigs, and West African Dwarfs. This fresh pig breed, the Guinea Hog of America maintained its black color, but it lost the red shade and it is occasionally called as the Black Guinea.

Features of Guinea Hog

The Guinea Hog is an uncommon breed with a black color coat, well-built body, vertical ears and a curly tail. The Guinea Hogs are small size pigs when compared to the modern pig breeds. Though the Guinea Hogs have a small body size, they have a body weight of 200 lbs (90.9 kg) and they will be capable of yielding 50 lbs (22.7 kg) to 100 lbs (45.5 kg) of fat and meat.

Further than this, conformation diverse, as the Guinea Hogs could have small or elongated noses and they are fine boned, medium boned, or big boned. It is probable that several strains of Guinea Hogs subsisted. As the majority of the Guinea Hogs is extinct, currently, it is impossible to weave collectively all the threads of the story of the Guinea Hog into a single neat section.

The Guinea Hog performs well as free-range scavengers, but they are as well, at home in a farmyard and are sensibly even-temper breeds. This black color Guinea Hog is not exercised for commercial farming, owing to its small body size and lofty lard content. There are two categories of Guinea hogs in North America, such as the large-boned Guinea hog and the small-boned hog. The large-boned Guinea hog will have longer legs, whereas the small-boned hog will have shorter legs.

In recent decades, the Guinea Hog had turned out to be uncommon because the home of the homestead hog has vanished, and it lived only in the most remote parts of the Southeast. The new groups of Guinea Hogs were established during the 1980s, partially in reaction to the pet pig market.

The average lifespan of the Guinea Hog is 10 years in the wild, whereas in the captive, they can live up to 20 years.

Guinea Hogs are very intelligent, not like people think, that Guinea Hogs are dumb animals. A Guinea Hog can drink between 10 to 14 gallons (37.8 to 53 liters)of water in a day. Guinea Hogs are omnivores like humans, an omnivores, (definition-they eat both other animals and plants). The Guinea Hog’s snout is its most important tool for finding food. The Guinea Hogs snout is used for their excellent sense of smell and they have poor eyesight.

The saliva of Guinea Hogs contains pheromones-( A chemical substance used to attract a mate) similar to that of other pig breeds that communicate their sexual wants. The male Guinea Hogs discharge this steroid and female pigs will go to vast lengths to acquire a smell of the sent.
Guinea Hogs are raised for there meat such as ham, sausage, bacon and pork chops. Pigs can make great pets. "A wild male pig is called a boar"- meaning uncastrated male pig, that lives in the wild and can be hunted. "Feral pig or hog is defined as a wild boar" can be a very big danger where humans habitat.

The term Swine: is any variety of omnivorous, even-toed ungulates of the family Suidae, this includes hogs, boars and pigs having a short neck, thick skin a movable snout and a stout body.

Guinea Hogs unlike is said, happen to be very clean animals. Guinea Hogs make sure their bathroom area is far away from where they eat, lie down and rest, even piglets (baby pigs) will find a place to go to the bathroom, far away from their nest. A Guinea Hog averages 6 to 10 baby piglets in a litter and will have two to three litters per year. The sows nurse their piglets for about three to five weeks. When Piglets are weaned off of their mother’s milk, they are not called piglets but are known as shoats. Piglets at birth weigh about 2.5 pounds (1.1 kilograms), and on average, will double their weight in one week.

Guinea Hogs Feet

The four feet and four toes of the Guinea Hog are called "trotters". A Guinea Hogs foot has four toes that are pointed downwards when the pig walks, it walks on the tips of its toes, rather than its whole foot and only uses two of the toes in the middle and the outside toes for balance. The Guinea Hog has tougher feet at the ends that are hooves. The two toes in the middle of the foot are slightly webbed, this helps the Guinea Hogs balance for walking.

Guinea Hogs have 44 teeth when full grown, when they are baby Guinea Hogs they have 28 teeth which will fall out when they are 12 months old. Just like human teeth, the Guinea Hog has an enamel coating that makes the Guinea Hogs teeth stronger and helps it curb disease. Guinea Hogs chew their food because Guinea Hogs have a digestive system similar to a human digestive system and cannot digest food that is not chewed. Guinea Hogs have small lungs compared to their body size.

A Guinea Hog is the last of the 12 animals in the Chinese zodiac. The Guinea Hog represents, happiness, honesty, fortune and virility in China. The lifespan of a Guinea Hog is between 9 and 15 years

Guinea Hogs do not sweat a lot, that's why they cover themselves in the mud to keep their bodies cool.