Scientific Breeding Methods for Wild Boars and Analysis of Common Misconceptions

In recent years, specialty breeding has become quite popular, and among these, wild boar breeding has been pursued by many people. Wild boar meat is firm and delicious, deeply loved by consumers, but compared to domestic pig breeding, the challenge is considerably greater. So how should wild boars be bred to be scientific? Which misconceptions are easy to fall into?

I. How should wild boars be bred to be scientific?

Place male and female wild boars into pens for artificial domestication. Wild boars are timid and afraid of people at first. To change this weakness, during artificial breeding, small wild boars are generally purchased for domestication, with body weights mostly between 10 kg and 22 kg, because at this age the wild boars are not old in months, are easy to tame, and have extremely strong adaptability.

During the domestication process, it is best to adopt the method of having a small half of domestic pigs lead and raise a large half of wild boars, with a mixed group breeding ratio of 2:8. In such an environment, young wild boars and domestic pigs of the same age will quickly form a group, letting the domestic pigs lead the young wild boars in activities and feeding.

The wild boar is an omnivorous animal, and generally is fed twice a day imitating domestic pigs. Because of its wild habits, it is good at eating raw food. Common farm foods such as tender corn, red sorghum, winter melon, potato (potato), sweet potato, peanut vines, sweet potato vines, millet ears, pumpkin, eggplant, fresh mulberry leaves, fresh vitex leaves, black locust leaves, carrots, white radishes, Chinese cabbage, fallen apples, pears, and persimmons are all foods it likes to eat.

When first raising them at home, they should be fed together with raw food. After one month, mix half raw food and the other half with feed for domestic pigs, such as cornmeal, bran, tofu residue, and starch residue; add an appropriate amount of salt, mix it in and feed it, so that they slowly change the habit of loving raw food.

After the wild boars have basically adapted to the penned environment, they can then be fed with domestic pig feed, but some root-type and leaf-type plants should also be appropriately added.

II. Which misconceptions easily arise in wild boar breeding?

1. In specialty wild boar breeding, there are risk factors in breeding technology and sales channels.

If the breeding technology is not adequate, breeding costs will increase and the risk will correspondingly increase. At the same time, the risk in sales channels is great; if the product has no outlet, how can one speak of making money? Therefore, before breeding, it is necessary to understand the local or surrounding consumer market and conduct more on-site investigations of catering in the city.

If someone locally is already breeding wild boars, investment needs to be even more cautious. First, specifically analyze the market capacity; second, start from product characteristics to form a differentiated competitive advantage, achieving the goal of being superior where others also have the same.

2. The higher the purity of specialty wild boars, the better

Practice has proved that the purity of specialty wild boars only needs to be between 62.5% and 75%. Such wild boars can not only be used as breeding stock for reproduction, but can also be pushed to the market as commercial pigs. Specialty wild boars with purity exceeding 75% not only have reduced reproductive capacity and slower growth speed, but also require a fairly high professional level to ensure the survival of piglets.

Only introducing purebred wild boars and using local domestic sows for crossbreeding to breed specialty wild boars. At present, people in the industry generally choose Duroc as the female parent for first-generation crossbred (50% purity) specialty wild boars. After crossbreeding with other breeds, the appearance, coat color, and carcass lean meat rate are all not ideal. The most scientific choices for farmers introducing breeding stock are two:

First, introduce purebred wild boars and 50% purity specialty wild sows, and purify and breed 75% purity specialty wild boars;

Second, directly introduce 75% purity specialty wild boars for expanded breeding.

This can avoid the following drawbacks brought by crossbreeding purebred wild boars with Duroc sows:

(1) The purity of the first-generation crossbred only reaches 50%, and a second recombination is required to reach 75%, which lengthens the breeding cycle;

(2) The body size of multiparous Duroc sows is much larger than that of wild boars, making it inconvenient for the boar to mount for mating;

(3) The price of purebred Duroc sows is greatly higher than that of 50% purity specialty wild boars.

3. Operating on a small scale and making money by selling breeding stock

Today, the wild boar industry shows a good development trend, and the market is becoming more and more standardized. Building a breeding pig farm must go through approval by the relevant departments, must have a strict culling and selection system, and must establish independent breeding pig archives. At the same time, strictly control epidemic prevention, and only sell after avoiding inbreeding. Small breeding farms generally find it difficult to meet the standards. Farmers should take a long-term view, engage in large-scale breeding, and take the path of the game meat market and deep processing of products.