Mangalica Festival

The pantry of Downtown

X. MANGALICA FESTIVAL OF Székesfehérvár

9-11 Sept, 2022

Székesfehérvár, Palotai Kapu square
Free Entry

The types of the Mangalica swines

The Mangalica pig has a 200 years old history in Hungary of which 50 years has been a real success story. That success has come to an end in 1955 when the number of the pedigreed sows has dropped from 18.000 to 243 pieces within just 10 years. In the following 5 years it had reached an all time low at only 35-40 sows.

After the regime change in 1989, the Hungarian Mangalica breeding has started another successful chapter: in 1994 the National Association of the Mangalica Breeders (MOE) was established for the second time, with 20 members and 6 breeders at the University of Debrecen.

Kinds of the bred Mangalica:
• blonde mangalica
• swallow-belly mangalica
• red mangalica

The mangalica swine has evolved in the Carpathian Basin in the 19th century and is a typical fat swine. Its frugality and fat-producing capability has made it world famous in its own time. Evolving the blonde mangalica in the 1830's was partly from the frizzy sumadia swine. The swallow-belly mangalica has evolved later from cross-breeding the mangalica swines and the szerémségi swine. The latest kind, the red mangalica has been cross-bred in the beginning of the 20th century using szalontai and new-szalontai swine.

The Hungarian mangalica swine is middle-sized in body size. It has the following parameters at the advanced age:

   
Sex Age Height (cm) Weight (kg)
Sow 1 64-67 90-100
2 72-73 120-140
3 74-77 140-160
Boar 1 65-70 100-120
2 75-80 130-150
3 80-85 150-170

The blonde mangalica has a range of hair colour from grey to yellow or yellowish red. The yellowish-reddish colour is caused usually by keeping and soil circumstances. (Picture No. 1 and 2.)

The red mangalica has a darker or lighter kind of red hair. (Picture No.3 and 4.)

The hair of the swallow-belly mangalica is black on the back and the sides while the bottom side of the body, the belly and the dewlap is white or silverish. The tail is also white with the end being black. (Picture No. 5 and 6.)

The skin of the mangalica swine is pigmented greyish-black, the natural orifices and the digging rim are black, so are the dugs and the nails. There is a light splodge (3-5 cm in diameter) on the bottom side of the parotid called the “Wellmann splodge” which is part of the mangalica character.

The hair is usually thick and long. It gets frizzy and coarse in the winter and softer and shorter in the summer. The frizzy hair is also kind of character. The too-curly, ring-like hair is undesirable on the back and on the sides and so is the too soft, wooly hair. The rough hair, or in the case of the blonde mangalica the black hair endings refer to the presence of another kind in the line of the animals ancestors.

 

The head is middle sized, the nasal bridge is softly broken, the ears are middle sized and leaning forward. The eyes are brown, the eyebrows and the eye lashes are black.

The base of the tail is characteristically thick, the end of the tail is always black.

The minimal number of the dugs are 5-5 regular, well-developed dugs on each sides.

The line of the back is mildly bent, the groin is either short or mid-sized. The ossature is delicate but very solid.

Source: National Association of the Mangalica Breeders (MOE)