[kitchen cottage]

For the four years I had pigs (one litter a year from a permanent sow so hardly a mahoosive undertaking  ) I've had my beautiful Essex [saddleback]Sow Charlotte...... for those of you who don't believe there is a separate Essex strain  I've inserted the word Saddleback for you.
 
I had two middle whites at mine two years ago as meat pigs and they were horribly tempered and I didn't think the meat was great....so never again (they ate one of my chickens alive that got in with them, my chooks are used to roaming with the pigs freely as they are safe from the foxes with them)
 
This year, as an experiment I bought in two weaner Tamworths from the City Farm I help with.  They were noisy and less friendly (but in fairness I had Charlotte from six weeks and her piglets from birth) but still manageable and much quicker growing and absolutely beautiful meat. at 6 months I got 68kilos of meat back from the abattoir.
 
The tamworth at the city farm has recently had a cross litter with an essex..... I have bought 3 as weaners for Christmas for people (I tend to give 1/2 pigs as a presents for my closest friends because I refuse to buy tat for anyone... just a bugbear).... having looked at them, they have saddleback markings but are VERY long in the back like the tamworths.
 
I had a terrible thought I might keep one of the gilts and breed her with a tamworth next year.... so I had a chance of a quieter temperament and a long lucious meaty body....
 
Is that a terrible idea?
 
I have meat pigs.  Several out of Charlotte have got to start new Essex Strains, because she does through nice piglets, but mainly they adorn a table.
 
Other than the "Oscar Wilde" downside, is there a general view that its not right to creat more mongrels? 

[Berkshire Boy]

Sounds like a good idea to me. I only breed pure Berkshires but that is the market I aim at. The mixing of breeds to see what you get regarding meat quality and taste is a good thing and doing no one any harm and at the end of it you eat it.

[domsmith]

All my recent pigs have been crossed. always native breeds. i have berkshire, GOS and tamworth and any cross between the 2. i just find they thrive better.
 the tamworth was introduced from a short stay from tamworth boar, who was dreadful. He kept escaping and was a real handful to  get back in, the last time i threatened to shoot him if he was not back in that day...... he was and i sold him quickly.

stay away from dreadful pietrains etc and all native breeds are good meat. berkshire cross gos in particular!. tammys are very tall, always look big but its height and length.

pig temperament tends to be bred into them. how the saws are and how the weaners are treated etc.

dominic

[HappyHippy]

I agree with BB  If you're happy with the set up and you've got an outlet for pork/pigs more power to you  I like breeding my Large Blacks pure, but having seen a couple from my last litter of OSB x Kunekune (which was not an intentional litter  ) there's an awful lot to be said for 'hybrid vigour' 
Good luck whatever you decide (and remember you've plenty of time to see how they grow before deciding 100% to breed from them)
HTH
Karen 

[robert waddell]

quite a lot in these posts     the chicken eating     pigs have a tendency to do this  even these kunnies
Tammie's are a very vocal pig
did you ever get round to sending the information to Mr pig so that he can confirm just what exactly your Charlotte is
once a pig learns that it can escape  it will always try to escape    even kunnies can face up to hummans
temperament is as much to do with the people handling the pigs you can get a mouthy pig but if you hit it on the snout it is not in learning i wont do that
if you breed from the tammie cross it will produce 3/4 tammie piglets

[kitchen cottage]

gggrrrrrrr......Oh Robert, you do like digs. 
 
Charlotte is an Essex Pig.  I call her that because she came from the city farm where i volunteer and which believes 4 separate strains of Essex pig exist.
 
Its not like micro pigs where there is a premium in persuading people of this.  The piglets cost no more.  But certainly the Essex Pig Society believe (and say they have proved) that there is a separate line.  Charlotte follows that line. 
 
I don't claim particular knowledge.  I am a solicitor with one pleasant sow who breeds one litter a year.  I call her an Essex because I have respect for and know to be genuine tell me that she is one and are trying to preserve  a line they genuinely believe to be true.  If you want to I'll gvie you their details and you, and "Mr Pig" can debate it with them, but I choose  to believe them and trust their beliefs.
 
Last time I posted quite innocently calling Charlotte an Essex Pig I was accused of having been duped in a sales pitch (she cost £30 and is serviced free so there is hardly a massive commercial gain in calling her an Essex..... and if you promise to breed many Essex Pig owners will give you a gilt as I have to people) and then it was suggested that I was misleading and then I got asked to provide her registration details.... she's a breed that isn't capable of any registration, she's in a log in an old mans books......
 
ggggrrrrrr...... I only have one pig so if I can't ask question about her, even if I put saddleback in square brackets I may as well not post.
 
I really am sorry that you so misunderstood the people who believe in Essex Pigs, they are caring and genuine people trying to preserve  something for the sake of preserving it

[SallyintNorth]

KC, please just ignore robert and his dripping tap, and please continue to participate here.  You are appreciated!   

[Fowgill Farm]

Second what SIN says its quite interesting to know about your charlotte, the reason why Mr Pig is interested is he was secretary of the Saddleback club and has also written histories of breeds particularly the SB, he may have useful info re the essex if you get in touch with him KC, he is doing a similar thing for the GOS clubs centenary which is next year including cataloging and scanning lots of old GOS pictures and is interested in any really old pics anyone has particularly of GOS ex royal show elwes cup champs.
best mandy .

[robert waddell]

as Mandy has said Mr pig would confirm or repudiate Charlotte's lineage      to have Charlotte as pure Essex there would need to be a lot more lines to perpetuate the Essex breed   they did amalgamate in the early sixty's     only pointing out the impracticality's of the claim
 
anyway you are happy with her and likewise she is happy with you
sally i do not have dripping taps plumbing is yet another string to my bow

[Mr Pig]

Oh dear, what a tangled web we weave! The problem is, and I would hope that someone practising law would be among the first to appreciate it and to deal in facts rather than fantasy, is that this is a public forum read by many more than those who actually participate on it. And whilst it may be nice to believe that you have something unique because you have been told that this magic place has the real Essex pig, it encourages others to go out believing that they too can get this wonderful creature and they get ripped off and so on. And then the complaints to the BPA and the breed clubs come flooding in.
 
I was partially responsible for the 'Essex Pig Society' being recreated in the 1990s by helping to fund it. It was started by two fanatical gentlemen from Northern Ireland who honestly believed that a single herd in Staffordshire had remained pure and who managed to get a small number of pigs from the breeder in question before he packed up completely. There was some doubt about the purity of the 'Essex' pigs he had then but even if one puts that aside, these men from Ireland soon found that it was impossible to breed these animals on without using a stock of pigs with Wessex genes in their make-up. Thus two DNA studies by the EU in the 1990s (which specifically included 'Essex' pigs from Belfast Zoo), and by the BPA last year, failed to find any difference in the genetic make-up of any Saddlebacks. Science proved that all British Saddlebacks are now the same. Further, every pedigree of every registered pig going back around 30 years appears on line on the BPA website for anyone to view and there is not a single animal on there that does not have an intermixture of Essex and Wessex genes to some degree. The Essex Pig Society does not register pedigree pigs and thus has no pedigrees other than those issued by the BPA.
 
For anyone wishing to look for themselves, it is very easy as the 'bloodlines' from each of the participating breeds, (they were forcibly amalgamated by the NPBA, now BPA, in 1967 when the Essex was becoming very rare), remains in place and thus a line such as the Grand Duchess was an Essex and a Golden Arrow was a Wessex Saddleback and I promise you that there is not a pedigree pig alive today in the UK that is either pure Essex or pure Wessex.
 
And one last thing which I sometimes have thrown up at me and that is the retort that the pigs aren't registered but have been kept pure over decades without any pedigree recording. An unregistered pig is just that - a pig. It is of no breed whatsoever and if it doesn't have a pedigree, it cannot make any claims about its purity. Sorry, but it's really going back to dealing in facts rather than emotions.

[kitchen cottage]

"oh what a tangled web we weave" really! "when first we practice to deceive"?   How dare you imply I have been misleading.  I'll say it again (and then I'll retire from this forum)
 
1. I have ONE breeding sow
2. I bought, not for any premium, from people I know and trust, and who are themselves knowledgeable.
3. They sold her me as an Essex Pig.  For the grand sum of £30.  They believe, not on any whim, that the Essex has retained a unique gene pool.  I believe them, because I know them.
4. I don't care, she is a good mother and very pleasurable.
5. I posted she was an Essex as a throw away comment in another post, never expecting it to cause such controversy.
6. I explained then and again and now again, that I believe because the people who tell me they know with authority.  I do not CARE enough to research it.  If she had been sold as a saddleback, I'd have called her that.
 
I've not misled, I've not deceived and I've not been dishonest.
 
I posted when I needed help and I've tried to give professional and other help (limited because of my inexperience) when I can.
 
If you want to continue the debate, the pig was sold by Pets Corner in Harlow, their primary strain was used to found the Essex Pig Company and Colchester Zoo also has their strain as "Essex Pigs" on display.
 
I don't care whether Charlotte is an Essex Pig or just an Essex girl (she has a lot of one night stands and gets pregnant...),  I do care that I was accused of dishonesty 

[Snapper]

I've just been reading this thread and from the comments I don't believe anyone was saying KG was dishonest/lying by calling Charlotte an Essex Pig.
 
 I watched those Jimmy's Farm programmes a few years ago and in my innocence took it that the Essex was just another name for Saddleback Pig that was bred in the Essex area. Perhaps that's what the City Farm believed too.
 
 

[Sylvia]

I have just hooked out from my store of books "Blacks Vet. Directory" 1964and have found this in the pig section.I can't type it all out as batteries won't allow.
The Essex,described by Youatt, 1837.Black with whiteshoulders, nose and legs. In the modern breed tip of tail should also be white.Face rather long and straight,ears hanging well forward but not too close& of mod.length, reaching to within 2ins. to tip of nose. Good average length, deep sides, fair width of back, neat shoulder.
Colour markings not yet fixed(1964) but standard calls for black head and neck, clear white belt extending over shoulders and continuing over forelegs. Rest of body black with exception of hind legs and tip of tail.
WESSEX, differs from ESSEX in having hind feet and tail black and is more of a bacon breed and is very hardy.
As they were amalgamated to form the Saddleback, I dare say you would get piglets veering to one breed or the other? with some being standard to either breed.
 All I know apart from what I've read is that Saddlebacks make damn good pork and bacon
 

[Tamsaddle]

The reason I think it unlikely that there is a pure Essex strain alive in 2012 is due to the 22+ year gap since the 1990's, or earlier.  To avoid serious inbreeding there would have had to have been dozens of pure, unrelated, Essex bloodlines to provide the boars for each new generation of pigs, even if you kept with the same bloodline each time on the dam side.   These would surely have had Essex bloodline names that someone somewhere would know about or have written down, and which could then be traced back, as can be done with all the other known registered breeds.   Perhaps Colchester Zoo and the Essex Pig Company have just got it wrong, and are not in any way being deliberately dishonest.   Tamsaddle

[Mr Pig]

Just so that there is no misunderstanding for those reading this public Forum, I have been on to the pedigree records on the BPA website and checked the pedigrees of every pig bred and registered by the pets corner at Harlow. For those wishing to do the same, their pedigree prefix is 'Spurrier'.
 
All pigs listed, alive and dead, have in their make-up the Great Grand Sire on the Dam's side, 'Colonyvalence Stockbroker 3'. If you in turn go to his pedigree you will see any number of Wessex bloodlines in his genes. It may seem pedantic but you cannot call a pig with Wessex genes in its veins an Essex.