About Us

American Mulefoot Breeders Association, Inc. (AMBA) was founded in 2014 as a non-profit organization, currently a NonStock VA corporation, to promote and preserve the critically endangered American Mulefoot Hog.

Working with the Livestock Conservancy and Associated Registry, the AMBA manages a Herd Book of American Mulefoot Hog breeding stock.  AMBA develops breeder networks through social media presence, such as Facebook group and page, and direct telephone, email and mail contact with prospective breeders and members.

Chairman 

 Historical Records  of the American Mulefoot Hog is a preferred pet project of the Chairman, and a past member attempted to glean information for members’ use.  we hope someone will step up to continue that great work.

Member Breeder Nancy Barron of Red Barron Ranch, Grand Saline, TX undertook the contact by phone, mail and email for Census 2021 and 2022.  

We will continue to require participation until our Herd Book and DNA records reflect a true representation of the hogs listed.  

These projects need member leadership teams to research and help develop these programs.
                                                  2018
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The AMBA is as much about people as it is about the animals. As a membership organization, it is breeder owned and democratically managed with elections for serving on the Board of Directors, chosen from AMBA's Member Breeders' list.   

Our last election was completed and we kicked off the AMBA Breeding Program Census.   Member Volunteer and Director is contacting members, past members, and contact information breeders to complete census on their animals.

The time  to nominate or volunteer is NOW!

Open:  Director

Open:  Team Recovery Lead

Open:  Marketing

Open:  Secretary (Director)

Open:  Treasurer (Director)

Open:  Team Historian

Open:  Team Recovery

                          May 20, 2024

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   We  have just received word from Michigan State University & Iowa State that they may be able to help us in coordinating our DNA program, writing the algorithms and getting this jump started.

Special thanks to Douglas Newcom, Ph.D. , Vice-President of Genetics & Technology at National Swine Regsitry, https://nationalswine.com.  He has given us the insight of what information belongs on our Census and what needs to be included in our DNA algorithms.  

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There is no simple recipe for saving breeds. A great many factors play a role in securing breed populations, including some luck, but those that do move up on the CPL and eventually graduate seem to have some things in common:  

1 - Strong breed associations and groups of breeders that are committed to maintaining the pure breed;   

2 - Owners and breeders of livestock who understand the value of registration for breed conservation and commit to registering their animals; 

3 - Associations and clubs that maintain consistent support and communication with their membership and provide mentorship for new breeders;  

4 - Good strategies for marketing and promoting the breed, its uses and its products.  

Collaborative efforts among breeders, and even among breed associations, can help secure a strong future for heritage breeds. 

As we move through this new year of conservation together, The Livestock Conservancy will continue to work with individuals and groups to facilitate such partnerships. We will continue to support breeders and breed associations with sound technical content and advice. 

Working together, we can ensure that irreplaceable heritage poultry and livestock breeds will enrich many lives in future generations.               

        The Livestock Conservancy

                                             Newsletter           

                                              4/14/22 (c)

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The AMBA is not affiliated in any way with the American Mulefoot Hog Association, which had been managing a registry for a number of years.  A large percentage of the Mulefoot breeding community, as well as the Livestock Conservancy, decided that a second association and registry was needed to manage registrations more effectively and to assist breeders with marketing, education and other services.

Due to member input, AMBA will be issuing a statement about other registries and any disservice to our organization, policies, and statements, as well as to current and past members.  We will be creating a new pamphlet with additional information to be shared with your customers that answers important reasons to choose American Mulefoot Pork over other breeds or cross-breeds.

A reminder to members, our primary focus, as defined in our mission statement is to preserve and promote the American Mulefoot Hog.  We have developed specific programs designed to KEEP phenotype American Mulefoot Hogs in our Herd Book, while offering specialized identifiers to the variances within the proper registration platforms.  This ensures that our future members and breeders, your customers, can rely on the paper work they have been issued as true and correct.  The work involved in reviewing your photo submissions, the care in transcribing & recording what we see, is not taken lightly.  We often have three Directors and two or three other subject matter experts (breeders, geneticists, veterinarians or other volunteers) review the photos and offer their input on variances in the subjects compared to known characteristics and identifiers.  This is a huge change over the past when there were only two Directors and expertise was limited.

Be your own breeding program advocate.

There are times when we must make difficult decisions, and as any breeder worth their salt knows, not every papered animal is quality stock capable of improving the lot of their chosen species or breed.  One breeder states often:  "Breed the best, eat the rest."  

Current  Board of Directors:

Nancy  Barron,  Red  Barron  Ranch,  Grand  Saline,  TX

Nathan  Randall,  Buffalo  Cattle  Ranch  &  Nate’s  Mulefoot  Pigs,  Bath,  NY

Gracie Cardwell   (Chairman) 

Gateway Farm, Appomattox, VA

                          
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Are you passionate about what we're doing? Let us know! We are always looking for volunteers to help us make our vision a reality. We'll help you find a way to volunteer that best suits you.

We're excited to have you

 join the team!

Open Board  Leadership  Positions:

Vice-Chairman (requires serving one year on Board of Director over Program)

Secretary  (requires  serving  one  year on  Board  of  Directors,  prompt  and  professional  communication    is imperative)

Treasurer  (requires  serving  one  year  with   Board  of  Directors ,  CPA/Accounting  experience  preferred)

 Volunteer  &  Team  Members

IT/Technical & Social Media

Volunteer Team lead/members:

*Genetic Diversity & DNA 

Research Project

*Census Questionnaire  Project

(CQP  filled)

*Historical Records of the American Mulefoot Hog

Things  to consider 

when  you volunteer:

1)  Keep current in your dues

2)  Raise  American Mulefoot Hogs  or  support  others’  efforts
3)  Commit to communication with the Board of Directors,  

Chairman  or  Team  members,  as needed.
4)  Attendance at  Meetings  (telephone,  Forum  discussions,  Zoom,  or  group chat,  etc)

An  Important  tenent  of  Membership  and  Volunteerism  includes:  

*Participation in local events (such as Farm Swaps, Fairs, Heritage Events, etc.) on behalf of AMBA  and  your  Farm!

We  have  banner  templates  that  you  can  purchase  in  whatever  size  or  format  you  need:   4x8  to  poster  board  or  flyer  size!    

What  does  your  display  table  or  pig  pen railing need?    We  can  customize  it  to  showcase  your  name, 

  farm  name  and  contact  information.  

Just  let  us  know 

 what  you  need  to  get  started.

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When  you  practice  and  undertake volunteerism,  you  may  not  feel  the  immediate  affects,  but  you  have  just  begun  ownership  in  

AMBA’s  mission.    

Please send your interest in service, any experience or area of expertise, farm name and years raising Mulefoot,  and a photo of you with your pigs or hogs to mulefootregistry@gmail.com

Thank you,
Board of Directors

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QUALIFICATIONS  TO  SERVE:

Member Breeders must be in good standing (dues current, currently own & breed purebred, registered American Mulefoot stock) to be considered for Member Teams or eligible for Member Team Leadership.  

Member Breeders will be eligible to serve on the Board of Directors after one full membership year, and after being vetted by the Board of Directors and presented to the membership via social media.  After becoming eligible to serve, their name will be added to ballots at the next election.

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THANK  YOU  to 

 Nancy  Barron  of  

 Red  Barron  Ranch  in  Texas  

for  help with  

2021  &  2022  Census  Form  completion.

If  you  get  an  email  or  

call  from  Texas  area  code  -  

she  isn’t  a  telemarketer, 

 we  promise!

Breed Standard that AMBA adopted at its inception is the SAME standard from AMHA&R.   You must consider breed standard and known presentations of flaws when buying, registering or selling.

*do not breed split or creased hoof animals

*do not breed animals with kinky tails*

*do not line breed dams to boar sons or sires to gilt daughters! 

*do not breed “R” Recovery Candidate hogs to “R” Recovery hogs.  

Read and learn what breed standard is.  

Based on the original charter information taken from the American Mulefoot Hog Association & Registry, and the historical documents and published registration journals, AMBA developed and adopted a phenotype based (visual characteristics) Breed Standard.  During this time frame, AMBA accepts white or pink dots or marks on the snout and white anklets just above the hoof wall. AMBA does not accept white hooves, white bellies, kinked or stumped tails, clipped tails, red, white, striped or other coat colors.  

In cases of deep injury, with documentation of injury and healing to white hairs coming out of the scar, AMBA may consider that animal provided it passes DNA as purebred and can be authenticated.

As of Spring, 2025, a full court press began to get the implements in place to begin DNA collection via Tissue Sample Units, or TSUs, and finally broadly cast DNA testing and analysis. On Thursday, May 29, 2025, AMBA received word that our specialized testing kits had finally been boxed and shipped!  The long wait is over - but we are still playing the waiting game.

It will take time for AMBA to collect the samples from all AMBA breeder's foundation sires and dams, and adding to that, we must collect and identify those designated Recovery, Provisional and Qualifier stock.  This creates a lot of moving parts to the equation, but we are ready for that.  Are you?

Our DNA & Diversity Algorithm and AMBA's Census are two key ingredients for the DNA Program.  The first part, the Algorithm with the protocol, explains the Who, What, Where, How and Why of testing.  The second part (Census) fills in the information that help identify the genetic markers found, with the visual characteristics or personality traits, desirable or not.  The second part also can analyze based on true pure bred stock whether a sample is from a cross-bred animal (with more than one breed characteristic), a line-bred or in-bred animal, and identify lineage connections to known foundation stock.

We are working on a new document system within the next year to allow fill-in forms via phone, tablet, iPad or computer, without the need for downloads, uploads, scanning, and hard copies of applications, Census and Registrations.  We hope this will be a more timely process than establishing AMBA's DNA & Diversity Project to AMBA's DNA & Diversity Program.

The quicker we identify, collect and analyze more American Mulefoot Hogs (more in the sense of unrelated stock vs/ testing each out of one litter), the greater the variety of alleles connected to unrelated characteristics and unique markers that may not be found in each animal or line.  Simply put - we need genetic diversification and variety as our breed as a whole is severely, genetically depressed. There are distinct groups of hogs showing extra dewclaws, repeated splits, white hooves, very long, thick and wavy hair - all of which were distinct dis-qualifiers to any animal born in the 1900s.  (For clarification:  1900-1999. Pre-AMBA.)  

Is an extra dewclaw in an American Mulefoot Hogas  typical as the five and six toed LGDs, whereas the extra dewclaw in any other commercial or landrace hog is a death sentence as it is a known visual identifier that indicates a higher than normal early abortion, piglet mummification (in utero), and low litter numbers or early piglet mortality or morbidity?

If we continue to breed lines that show these anomalies, are we creating a line that will expire?  Putting an expiration date on these historically significant animals will certainly be the death knell.  We need to know what all the positives are and replicate them, and identify the negatives, and breed those lines UP within the breed, not by introducing foreign breed genetic material.  

Chairman had a line that was significantly fertile compared to others'. When paired with distantly related lines, both offspring sets in Virginia and Connecticut, were considered "super pigs".  Where I had seen litters of eight (8) initially, grow to eleven (11) live births in a matter of three years (maturity age of my sows), others were reaping nine (9) at first farrowing, and then twelve (12) live births within the second year of breeding.

The evidence is here. This is no hypothesis or educated guess that genetic analysis will improve our breeding programs.  
How your pig is listed in AMBA's Herd Book is less important (near sighted), than that they ARE properly placed in AMBA's Herd Book (far sighted).  In this case, being far sighted has a future looking vision to the propagation and perpetuation of the breed!

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The American Mulefoot Hog is one of the oldest and rarest breeds of swine in North America, with fewer than 200 annual breed registrations at last count, making it critically endangered.   

169 registrations in 2021.

With competition from large scale factory farms, it is imperative that consumers and farmers work together to make a market for these amazing creatures and bring them back from near extinction.  

This breed has also been chosen as one of "Slow Food's Ark of Taste" animals due to its exceptional taste and need for conservation. American Mulefoot Hogs have competed in the Cochin555 over the years.


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"The Mulefoot is an American hog breed that is named for its most distinctive feature, the solid, non-cloven hoof which looks like the hoof of a mule.  This characteristic will occasionally occur as a single gene mutation, producing occasional "mulefooted" pigs within a variety of other breeds.  In contrast, the Mulefoot breed is consistent in appearance and behavior, with qualities that have made it valuable in American history and a conservation priority today.

"The origin of the Mulefoot is unclear, and many theories have arisen about its links with mulefooted stocks in Asia and Europe.  The breed is more likely to have descended from the Spanish hogs brought to the Americas beginning in the 1500s.  It shares some attributes with the Choctaw hog, and the two breeds likely come from the same ancestral stock, which was loosely selected and managed until the late 1800s.

"By 1900, the Mulefoot had become a standardized breed.  It was valued for ease of fattening and production of meat, lard, and especially hams.  Mulefoot hogs were distributed throughout the Corn Belt.  They were also common along the Mississippi River Valley, where farmers ranged their hogs on the islands in the river, putting them out to forage in the spring and collecting them in the fall.  In the early 1900s, there were two Mulefoot breed associations and over 200 herds registering purebred stock.

"Mulefoot hogs are compact in appearance and weigh 400-600 pounds.  They are solid black with white points occurring rarely.  The ears are pricked forward.  Some pigs have wattles on either side of the neck, though this is not common.  The breed forages well and thrives under extensive husbandry.  They have litters of 5-6 piglets but may have as many as 12.  The sows make excellent and calm mothers.

"The Mulefoot breed is critically rare.  As of 2006 there are fewer than 200 purebred hogs documented.  Most of these originated in the Holliday herd of Missouri, which is believed to have been the last purebred herd in existence."  - Text (c) The Livestock Conservancy.