Red Wattle
Have a Red Wattle to sell? List it.Threatened on the Conservation Priority List, 2026 edition
About Red Wattle pigs
The Red Wattle is a large red hog with a fleshy wattle hanging from each side of the neck. The wattle is a single-gene trait with no known function, and it usually passes to crossbred offspring. The breed exists only in North America, which is most of why it matters genetically.
Where it came from is obscure. Red hogs with wattles have been recorded here since at least the mid-1800s, probably arriving through the Gulf of Mexico and spreading inland. Everything registered today traces to wattled pigs in Texas in the twentieth century.
The recent history is a near-miss. In the mid-1980s The Livestock Conservancy tried to get Red Wattle breeders to consolidate their efforts, and the breeders preferred to keep their three separate registries. A census in 1990 counted 272 registered purebred offspring. By 1999, when Jerry Russell went looking, he found 42 breeding animals across six breeders, and none of the three registries had registered anything in years.
The Red Wattle Hog Association was founded in 2001 with eight members.
Sourced from The Livestock Conservancy and the breed’s registry, reviewed by HoofnHorn.
No Red Wattle pigs at auction right now.
Heritage breeds come up in ones and twos, so this is normal. We will email you the moment a Red Wattle is listed.