An email this week from a co-worker of decades ago included pictures of kids showing their pigs at some livestock show somewhere recently.

I was questioned about the pigs’ appearance compared to 4-H Club pigs back in the day when the sender and I were employed to oversee such.

She felt the modern show swine were dumpy, short-legged and had big bellies. I was assigned to explain why.

I began with the belly. The truth is we were contemporary but wrong back in the 1970s when I was advising 4-H kids and sometimes serving as judge at local livestock shows. We wanted pigs to grow to market size with ample muscle and very little stomach.

It got to the extreme where some show pigs were described as “single-gutted.” True, the profit in swine is in lean meat; fat is useful for bacon and sausage.

In fact, 60 percent of the value of a live market hog is the wholesale cuts of loin and ham. Common sense now tells me for a pig to grow fast and convert feed to meat it has to eat a lot. Thus the belly that holds a lot of feed awaiting digestion.

Harkening back again, the typical pig of that day reached market size at six months of age. We would often “hold back” show pigs as they neared final size to keep them within the weight limit of an upcoming show and to shrink the belly. This was done by limiting feed and water as needed. It wasn’t unusual for a show pig to be nearly 7 months old sporting a 6-month-old’s body.

Eventually “long and lean” gave way to muscular and a stomach that results from non-stop eating and laying on muscle. By the way, modern hogs reach market size at five months of age.

Stomach size is not an indicator of body fat in swine. Forty years ago, the standard for top quality hogs was a full inch of backfat, the layer of fat over the ribs and loin. Today’s standard is .6 of an inch.

Hogs are wider bodied, but actually significantly leaner now. And since it takes over twice as much feed to create a pound of fat versus a pound of lean, feed efficiency has correspondingly improved.

There is and always has been a gender difference in swine growth. Both neutered males known as barrows and females known as gilts are fed and marketed and you cannot tell the difference at the meat counter.

Barrows eat a tad more and grow a bit faster.

Gilts, however, initially are better feed converters and are a bit leaner up to a point.  Then gilts begin laying on extra fat earlier than barrows, leading to gilts typically being marketed slightly earlier and at slightly lighter weights.

As for the short-leggedness, I was asked to explain; perhaps it is an optical illusion with bigger bellies making pig legs look shorter.  Or perhaps weaker demand for smoked hocks and pickled pigs feet negates the need for leg length. I dunno.
Terry Rector is spokesman for the Warren County Soil and Water Conservation District.