Who says wild boars can’t eat fine bran? They don’t really want it!

If ordinary people are told that "wild boars cannot eat fine bran", they will get angry and retort; but if this sentence is really used to refer to wild boars, from the perspective of agricultural practitioners, it can be said to be quite inaccurate.

Below are our arguments and evidence.

Argument 1: Wild boars are not interested in eating fine bran

Wild boar is a wild boar.

Wild boars have a wide range of diets and are highly adaptable to food: in the summer they can eat wild vegetables, hares, rodents, and insects; in the winter they can eat high-calorie acorns; and sometimes they also eat bird eggs and chicks. Under extreme conditions, wild boars may even hunt young cats and dogs to eat.

Therefore, when we say that wild boars cannot eat fine bran, it is probably because they have so many things to eat that even if fine bran is right in front of them, it is not so rare .

Nature is the canteen for wild boars! | Tuchong Creative

Argument 2: Wild boars are not inedible, but people dare not eat them

Let's assume a scenario:

You are suddenly imprisoned in a small cage somewhere by a stranger. Then the stranger appears and serves you exquisite Michelin cuisine. Do you dare to eat it? Can you eat it?

Let’s think about this again:

A hunter caught a wild boar, put it in a cage, and fed it artificially prepared concentrated feed. Would it be too scared to eat?

You see, not only wild boars cannot eat fine bran, other animals including humans and domestic pigs, when faced with a sudden change in environment and under stress, may refuse to eat , no matter whether it is coarse bran or fine bran.

Angry wild boar locked in a cage | Tuchong Creative

Argument 3: Wild boars can certainly eat fine bran

Wild boars caught by hunting will refuse to eat out of fear, but wild boars raised by humans from a young age can eat fine bran .

Raising wild boars is nothing new. You may even find wild boar meat at a vegetable market near your home. Farmers also like to raise wild boars because wild boars are not picky eaters and can eat green fodder (fresh plant roots, stems and leaves), which reduces feed costs. Wild boars have a higher lean meat rate than domestic pigs, making them very friendly to modern people. Wild boars are strong and sturdy and rarely get sick, so the risk of raising them is lower than that of raising domestic pigs.

When farmers feed wild boars (including purebred wild boars and domestic boar-wild boar hybrids), the initial diet is similar to their diet in the wild. Then they can slowly increase the proportion of fine bran - refined domestic pig feed (such as cornmeal, bran, tofu dregs, etc., combined with supplements such as vitamins, amino acids, minerals, trace elements, enzyme preparations, etc.) to make it grow faster.

Once wild boars have fully adapted to captive life, in theory they can directly eat the fine bran of domestic pigs .

Captive wild boars - yes, wild boars are so cute! | Tuchong Creative

Argument 4: Not eating fine bran makes a wild boar

Although artificially bred wild boars can theoretically eat only fine bran, that is, concentrated feed, no farmer would probably do so.

If wild boars are fed with fine bran every meal, their calorie intake will increase, their body size will gradually become similar to that of domestic pigs, and they will have more and more fat on their bodies, which will make wild boar meat lose its advantages as food and commodity.

Therefore , in order to produce higher quality and more expensive wild boar meat, their feed must contain a large amount of "bran", that is, the roots, stems, leaves and the like of plants.

The price of wild boar meat is more than three times that of domestic pork丨E-commerce screenshot

Argument 5: Domestic pigs can also eat some "bran"

Let's do a reverse argument: wild boars can eat fine bran, and domestic pigs can also eat some "coarse bran" .

Domestic pigs are unlikely to enjoy the small wild animals in the wild boars’ diet . Facing the bacteria, viruses and parasites in wild animals, domestic pigs in large-scale farms are not as resistant as wild boars and will easily get sick.

However, if domestic pigs only eat the plant part of the wild boar diet, there is no problem : I believe that many older readers have the experience of cutting grass to feed pigs when they were young. It’s just that domestic pigs that only eat fresh plants are thinner than domestic pigs that eat concentrated feed.

Of course, domestic pigs were originally domesticated from wild boars. If a group of domestic pigs were allowed to live in the wild for generations and eat the "bran" of wild boars, in theory they could also become wild, and even if they did not grow tusks, they would at least have the ability to survive in the wild.

Domestic pigs left in the wild will eat everything | Tuchong Creative

Finally, a piece of advice: putting aside the question of what wild boars eat, if you really encounter a wild boar in the wild, stay as far away from it as possible!

I dared to ride this hybrid pig once when it was foraging. Later, when I was isolating sows, I was knocked off the ground by it (with both feet off the ground). Photo provided by the author

Author: SamKakeru

Editor: Li Xiaokui