The American Guinea Hog is the ideal pig for sustainable farms and homesteads. They are excellent foragers and are capable of providing most, if not all of their own feed off the land. They are smaller than common factory farm pigs found today but they are still a good sized hog. They can range in size but commonly 22-27 inches tall, 46-56 inches long and 150-300 pounds depending on age, sex and breeding. Guinea Hogs are what is known as a landrace breed so there can be a lot of variations between characteristics of bloodlines and individual pigs. A recessive red gene exists within the breed but it is extremely rare and almost never presents itself. They are most often solid black in color but occasionally can have a blue-gray or reddish tint to their coat. Some have white feet or socks and pink on their snout.
Hogs in general have a reputation for being vicious animals but Guinea Hogs are known to have a great temperament. They are calm, docile and easy to work with. Many of our Guinea Hogs, including our boar enjoy belly rubs and being scratched behind the ears. Just an accidental brushing of your pant leg to their belly will cause them to flop over begging for a tummy rub. They are excellent attentive mothers and the boars tend to be very gentle with their offspring. They have a long reproductive life and can continue to farrow decent sized litters until 8-10 years of age but some breeders have reported even older.
The meat from these hogs is quite remarkable. Guinea Hog pork has a very unique flavor profile and is often described as being very moist, buttery and sweet. Pork from Guinea Hogs is highly sought after by many high end chefs and butchers for making old world style cured meats known as charcuterie. Their rendered fat is abundant and appealing to pastry chefs and bakers for use in doughs and crusts. Though they are smaller, they have extremely tender meat and delicious juicy hams. Many think that Guinea Hogs will not have any bacon because they are a lard hog but that simply isn’t true.
We know that the American Guinea Hog breed was developed in the United States but the history of these hogs is somewhat blurry and a mystery still today. They were once the most common breed of hog in the southern parts of early America. In conjunction with slave trade, hogs were imported from West Africa. These early imports were documented by several Virginian farmers including Thomas Jefferson around 1804. Because of their red colored coat they were called Red Guinea. These pigs disappeared with cross breeding to form other breeds.
Several years later, the name Guinea popped up again but these pigs looked very different than the red pigs described from a few years earlier. In these documents they were said to be small black hogs. These pigs were commonly found on homesteads in the Southeastern parts of the United States. They were hardy and great foragers that gained well without outside inputs from the farmer. These pigs were expected to be self sustaining, eating acorns, roots, small animals, bugs, snakes, basically anything that they could forage for themselves. Sometimes they were kept as yard pigs to cut back the snakes in high population areas.
It is still unclear today if these Guinea hogs were in fact related to the red pigs that Thomas Jefferson talked about in earlier years or if the use of the word “Guinea” was a mere coincidence describing their smaller size. Recent finding may suggest that the American Guinea Hogs might be more related to the English breed, Essex or perhaps both. As more research is done by Guinea Hog enthusiasts and conservationists maybe someday we will be able to put all the puzzle pieces together. The conformation descriptions of these pigs varied. Some had long snouts while some had short. Some had fine bones and others had big bones. They could range in weight, but typically topped out around 300 lbs. They were typically black in color although blueish tints weren’t uncommon. Guinea Hogs became more and more rare overtime as people started moving away from the homestead lifestyle and the push for massive sized breeds when factory farming started to become the norm. Back in the 1880’s, there were many different herds of these pigs but over the next century, many lines fell to extinction and are now lost forever.
Guinea Hogs were thought to be completely extinct but around 1980, a few small herds were luckily discovered. Through careful breeding and with less than 50 Guinea Hogs, new herds of Guinea Hogs were established. These conservation efforts is what has allowed us to be able to raise and enjoy these spectacular pigs over recent years. We feel extremely privileged to have a small part in the preservation efforts of this great breed that could have very easily been lost over night.