Red Wattle Hog Stewardship

A MOTHER EARTH NEWS editor visits her grandparents to learn about their contributions to the conservation of a unique heritage hog breed.

By Amanda Sorell
Published on August 9, 2022
article image
courtesy of The Livestock Conservancy

Red Wattle hogs are among the struggling livestock breeds that a small group of dedicated farmers and ranchers are working to preserve. Join an editor on her visit to two local heroes (and relatives) who explain their efforts to revitalize one heritage hog breed.

Print  There is an audio version of this article for your listening pleasure.  Scroll down a little bit and look for the “Audio Article” link.

When I was a kid, my grandparents lived on a rural Kansas farm surrounded by fields of alfalfa and, later, adjacent to a wind farm. We’d drive by the turbines with their giant blades slicing the wide sky, and continue down dirt roads until we saw the “Lazy S Farms” sign in front of their wooden farmhouse, which doubled as a rustic bed-and-breakfast. I savored these trips, during which I’d read books while lying on plush fur hides in front of their fireplace and admire their eclectic collection of antiques. Outdoors, we’d visit the horses in their pen, the kittens in the barn, the chickens in the garden, and the Red Wattle hogs in their run. I loved the piglets, but at the time, I gave no thought to what breed they were, or those distinctions beyond “pig” or “hog” even existed.

So when my grandparents, Larry and Madonna Sorell, were featured in Time magazine when I was a teenager for raising a special breed of hog in high demand among well-known chefs in big cities, I read the article and glimpsed a world I’d never considered — where a pig isn’t just a pig, and where my grandparents were highly regarded for their work.

Only after years of working for MOTHER EARTH NEWS, where we often publish articles about heritage breeds, did this memory resurface. After an online search, I turned up other articles calling my grandfather “an avatar of the heritage food movement, a salt of the earth farmer, a true believer who was destined to become the Guardian of the Red Wattle.” Reading these words, I knew it was time I paid my grandparents a visit at their new farm in Missouri to learn more about these pigs and their years of raising them — and to learn more about my grandparents themselves.

Comments (0) Join others in the discussion!
    Online Store Logo
    Need Help? Call 1-800-234-3368