History of our Patternless Hogs…
Years ago, Gary Lorio bred Hogs, he had some of the original wild caught Cayos los Cochinos boas… One day he called me to tell me about some weird babies that were just born, I went over the next day or so to check them out and what I saw blew my socks off !!! approx 14 babies, 7 of which had a reduction in pattern… I had wanted to get some of his hogs for years and decided this was gonna be the year… I ended up buying the whole clutch…
Kept some, sold some… raised them up and last year (2003) bred a reduced male to a normal unrelated female, all the babies came out ‘normal’ looking, oh well, not co-dominate…. This year (2004) I bred the same male to 2 reduced patterned sisters… On May 3, 2004 I got the 1st litter from a reduced x reduced breeding.. The female delivered early and the results were not great, 7 slugs, 5 still born, 1 runt and 3 good babies, but wait.. all the babies had pattern ???? Realizing I had just run out of bullets the day before, I proceeded to pound my head against the closest wall… (bad idea with real plaster walls! ) anyway, Its always a great thing to produce something, but this was not what I wanted to see…. Moped and whined for a few days and got over it…. Then on June 3, 2004 walked in on the other reduced female delivering her babies… Saw a pile of babies and a few slugs… waited for her to finish and scooped up the babies… Wait.. something is going on here… some of the babies have a reduction in pattern like the parents.. then at the bottom of the pile I found the holy grail, a baby with no pattern from head to tail !!! carefully placed it down and shook my head and re-focused my eyes… yes.. there was no pattern…. So…. what does this tell me ???
Reduced x Normal = normal looking babies
Reduced x Reduced = normal looking babies & 7 slugs
Reduced x Reduced = half normal, 5 slugs, & half reduced (50-100%) ????
At this time I’m still scratching my head on this one.. can only guess what is going on…
A buddy of mine works at a research lab and he spoke to his boss about it.. they sent me a possible explanation, but my brain hurts too much to absorb all the info… anyway…further breeding trials will be needed to determine what the exact genetics are for this trait…
In the mean time… I’ll just have to enjoy looking at them!!!!
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thanks Paul
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