Razorback and wild hog are American colloquialisms, loosely applied to any type of feral domestic pig, wild boar, or hybrid in North America; pure wild boar are sometimes called "Russian boar" or "Russian razorbacks". The term "razorback" has also appeared in Australia, to describe feral pigs there.
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All feral pigs are decedents of the Spanish explores bringing pigs with them. Then people brought Eurasians and “Russians” over for sport or farming and they obviously escaped and can cross bread with normal feral pigs.
Normal feral hog. All pigs can make the hair stand up slightly between there shoulders. Pigs with razor backs have Eurasian blood in them. They tend to be a brown color and piglets will be stripped instead of the normal black/brown/spotted.
Last edited by TexasOutdoorsman; 08/13/2002:23 PM.
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The YO Ranch imported some of the pure blood European hogs back in the 60's, I believe. When hunting some of the ranches in that area I still see some of the European influence, with erect, long hair from the poll on the head down the neck and ending mid back. While this boar seems to have a pretty heavy hair coat, he looks like most of the boar hogs I encounter across most of the country. Adios, Gary
The way I was taught to tell if the hog had any European blood was to look the hair ends. Splits or multiple splits on a single strand will have European influence. Single strand will be a feral hog. Very few true European hogs live here anymore due to the crossing with the feral pigs. I do know of one ranch in South Texas that was actually breeding the true Russian Boars and releasing them on his HF ranch.
A true European wild boar is quite an attractive animal
I would say that vast majority of these feral hogs here that have characteristics of European boar is the result of a recessive gene somewhere down the line surfacing and not a result of a higher % of euro blood compared to your run of the mill feral hog.
We killed one many years back that for a pig, was pretty handsome. Big cutters, sandy blonde hair, straight tail, “ razor back “ Mohawk. This was on a ranch where most hogs were black although we did have some white ones. Pretty much a Heinz 57 mix of swine blood and somehow we got a euro looking one. I’ve also killed a solid white pig that was full grown that looked almost like a small calf. Very long face
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