The 11-day reign of a big pig from northeast Iowa will end this Sunday.
Sasquatch, this year’s Big Boar at the Iowa State Fair, weighed in at just over a thousand pounds. Wilbur Kehrli of Manchester and his son, Ken, are the boar’s owners.
“It was kind of impressive because when he got in the champion’s pen, he lifted it up about three foot off of the floor,” Wilbur Kehrli says. “He is athletic and kind of a replica of what the good hogs in the business should be.”
Sasquatch is a Red Wattle boar. Red Wattles are red and have what look like furry tassels dangling from their jowls. Kehrli says they’ve had a “common sense” nutrition plan for Sasquatch. “He’s had corn, oats, soybean meal, vitamins and minerals,” Kehrli says, “…and the two magic ingredients that we’re lacking so much today in so much of our industry and that’s fresh air and sunshine.”
Kehrli says five generations of his family have been involved in hog business. It started with his grandfather and now his grandchildren are involved. “First time I was at the State Fair was in 1952 with Iowa’s heaviest 18 pig litter and I’ve had the fair bug ever since,” Kehrli says.
There were two competitors in this year’s Big Boar contest. Sasquatch was 118 pounds heavier than a boar named “Big Joe” that came from a farm in Muscatine County.
(By Janelle Tucker, KMCH, Manchester)