4 ms·

My understanding is that domesticated pigs quickly revert to growing fur and tusks within months when feral - effectively becoming more like the pictures in the

• Loughla 4y ago
  It's not that they revert, it's that the care and feeding is a part of this. Most hogs grow tusks, but they are docked or trimmed in some fashion. All pigs, even the "classic" pink cute ones you might think of when you think farm pig are covered in coarse "fur" though it is not as thick as you find on a feral hog like a razorback or some other such thing. Source; was a farmer. Edit: also, I didn't even think about this when I first wrote this, but we also butcher hogs VERY young, so they haven't had time to develop those "wild" traits yet by the time they are market size. So that might be part of it, too.
  • Pxtl 4y ago
    That explains the tusks, but AFAIK even very young wild hogs have proper feral fur, not the thin coat of bristles you get on a farm pig. I wonder if there isn't an environmental component there, not just age... or it might just be genetics from interbreeding with wild species.
• Pxtl 4y ago
  Yeah, I've always been curious about this too. The article describes 3-year-old pigs roaming the forest, so that sounds very close to a wild lifestyle compared to a modern pig that spends its whole life in a small pen and is slaughtered at 6 months old. I wonder is it just age that causes fur growth? Hunger? Not having 4 walls an siblings to rub against? Exposure to the elements?