stlbites.com – st. louis food blog of bill burge

American Mulefoot Hogs

Nov 9, 2007 farming, slow food, sustainable agriculture

Feeling inspired by all that Wooly Pigs information, I’ve started a quest to find a farmer that will raise and slaughter a pig specifically for me and a few friends.

Looking for advice I figured I might as well email the source of the inspiration, Heath Putnam. He responded today by pointing me towards Water Hollow Farms in Drury, MO.

Waterhollow had raised Mulefoots, a rare breed of American hog that happens to be part of the Slowfood Ark of Taste.

“The American Mulefoot Hog was widespread in the central region of the USA in the first half of this century. They were a hardy outdoor breed with the normal cloven hooves of a pig fused into a single toe (syndactyl). They were also reputed to be resistant to a number of pig diseases prevalent at the time. By the 1960’s vaccines and treatments were available for most pig diseases and the numbers of Mulefoot Hogs declined. By 1985 only one herd remained belonging to a Mr R.M. Holliday in Missouri, USA. He continued to maintain the breed because he believed it had a unique characteristic of hardiness, and because of his own family tradition. Both his father and grandfather had reared this breed of pig on the small river islands in that part of the Mississippi river from which they would harvest the young pigs. Today, as new resistant strains of once controllable diseases begin to emerge there is some renewed interest in the American Mulefoot Hogs to re-evaluate the disease resistance claims. There is also interest in examining the foot structure of the breed to see if it might prevent lameness in commercial pigs reared on concrete floors or slats. However, if it hadn’t been for the determination of this one farmer to keep this breed going, these new research opportunities would not be available.”

It’s the had that should jump out at you.

I spoke to one of the farms owners, Susan Bates, this afternoon, and she kindly explained to me that with her son leaving the farm, and nobody else around to help her, they are getting out of the business. It was my next question though that was the kind of thing I hadn’t considered. I asked if she knew of anyone else that was raising a quality hog and she informed me that many in her area are getting out of the business do to the increase in feed costs.

The American Livestock Association lists Mulefoots as critical which they define as having “Fewer than 200 annual registrations in the United States and estimated global population less than 2,000.”

Maybe I’m just getting soft as I get older, but it makes me genuinely sad to think that rising costs could cause a truly American Heritage Breed to go more or less extinct. Especially one with a history so entwined Missouri.

Something at the very least to think about for sure.

More information on this, and other Heritage Breeds in danger of being extinct can be found at The American Livestock Breeds Conservancy, and here is the information on mulefoots specifically.

Tags: mulefoot hogs