Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Hungarian Domesticated Animals, Farm Evolution

In these photos of a Hungarian farm near Pecs, you can see they've got cheap structures to protect the pigs from the sun. There's not much else, besides a little fencing. Somewhere, there's got to be some food and water - or the pigs would have to bust out to go get some.

It gets cold in Hungary. Just imagine being out there in winter, and being the small pig on the outside of the huddle.

In this next photo, you can see more of the farm. There's more space, more pigs. Everything flows downhill:

The most obvious feature of the pigs are their coats.Other Hungarian animals look this way too. Here's one of their dogs herding some Racka sheep:


In the late 1800s, the Hungarians started fattening Mangalitsa pigs in a more industrial fashion. This photo below is the I could find.

In the photo on the right, they've got train tracks very close to the pigs. That would be great for moving food in and manure and pigs out. These days we'd put in a loading dock to get pigs in/out, and a concrete apron to drive equipment on.


4 comments:

Walter Greenleaf said...

very interesting!

imagine how warm they are. also, a multi task animal, if you will. you got your lanolin, your sheep skin, and your bacon! (boil the fat too, i guess, but i dont really study pigs)
well, thank you for informing me of the infamous wooly pig!

The Girl said...

these piggies are sooo cute!!!!

Anonymous said...

are they used for meat and wool?

Heath Putnam said...

anonymous - I don't think any pigs are raised for their bristles.