Pig colors

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I like having a pig herd that is a variety of colors. While purebreds can be impressive, I prefer a hybrid vigor and even the Mendelian assortment. It turns out that the colors that pigs are probably the result of humans breeding for those colors.

This is a pretty typical pasture scene. The medium sized pig herd has decided that it (collectively) likes to lay on the cows hay. We feed the cows a local grass hay that has a lot of variability in its quality. Some of the bales are very straw-like. So when the cows and sheep have picked through the bale and eaten all they care to, the pigs take over and lay on the hay. They eat some of it, too, but mostly it's just a comfort think I think. We bed the pigs in this same hay... it cannot be lack of hay access for the pigs.

The article on pig color selection can be found here