Boars
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Christoph has many boars, because they are the key to keeping the breed genetically diverse. Boars are more important than sows because they have around ten times as many children as any given sow.
Boars are huge, strong animals whose main goal in life is to mate with sows. If there is a sow in heat near a boar, he'll wreck things to reach her, and try to fight off any other interested boars.
That said, boars seem nice to humans, and when they aren't working, like getting scratched and fed. Boars have long tusks, which they sharpen constantly, by nervously rubbing their teeth against each other. Boars also foam at the mouth, releasing pheromones that put females in the mood.
Boars can do a lot of damage very quickly when agitated. All boars on Christoph's farm have their natural razor-sharp tusks, because they are so tame. Most farmers would cut their tusks, but this can hurt the boar and can lead to infection - which can get in the way of him working.
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On Christoph's farm, all but one boar is confined. The free boar is a very old boar whose job is to let Christoph know when a sow is fertile. When Christoph sees that boar showing interest in a sow, he takes her to a younger boar for breeding.
When boars are near a sow in heat, they give her a lot of attention. They get very excited, chase her around and make noises. The sow tries to get away and makes noises back at them. A boar loses a lot of weight pursuing sows during the breeding season due to all the activity.
We saw one boar chasing a sow around in his pen. It was amazing to watch - they were making lots of noise at each other. It was a huge and disturbing racket. The sow seemed especially angry and bellowed at the boar a lot. The boar kept nudging her backside with his nose, pestering her. He seemed simply awful - but then she stood for him and he mounted her.
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During all this, the boar's company-free neighbors looked in at the action, some hauled themselves up on to the wall between them to look in and make aggressive noises.
It was very interesting for us. Normally on the farm, the pigs were happy to see us, or perhaps a bit skittish. But when the pigs were breeding, they ignored us and we felt superfluous.
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