Can the Big Boar contest survive artificial insemination? This 10-year-old boy could help.

No one’s quite sure why Big Joe wasn’t put on the harvest truck.

Most likely there wasn’t enough room. But the Theobalds are pretty sure a dash of destiny was involved, too.

Because — as his name tips off — Big Joe is a big pig. And he has a unique stature, one that 10-year-old pig farmer-in-training Jack Theobald thought just might be able to support some weight — well, a lot of weight.

Turns out Jack was right — a lot right.

Big Joe won second in this year’s Big Boar contest, becoming the reserve champion. Better yet: Showing Big Joe has set off an interest in Jack that the fair hopes is contagious enough to sustain the competition through breeding shifts in the pig industry.

“It really was an accident,” says Jack’s mom, Chelsea. “He didn’t get on the truck, so we kept him, and then we kept him a little longer and then a little longer and we’ve grown quite attached to Big Joe.”

Born into a swine family through and through, Jack has been hauling pigs since he was 3 or 4 years old, back when he still needed a booster seat in the semi, Chelsea says. Breeding, weaning, farrowing, there’s just not much that Jack can’t do by himself at this point.

“Farming is his most favorite thing in the world,” she says. “He learned how to drive my dad’s tractor last fall, and he’s been learning to drive the skid loader at our farm, and he’s better than most except for he can’t sit on the seat and reach the throttle" at the same time.

On Halloween last year, Jack was late to trick-or-treating because he was breeding pigs. He’d planned the schedule specifically so he could sync up his and his cousin’s piglets to be born together. And he spent New Year’s Eve farrowing other pigs in his pajamas, welcoming in 2023 from the barn.

The Theobalds tried to raise a big boar a few years ago, but, despite their best efforts ― and dozens and dozens and dozens of doughnuts ― that particular porker never quite reached peak weight. Since then, the family has been on the hunt for a pig with the right shape.

And then a 4-year-old Yorkshire Landrace Cross with just the right look didn’t make the truck.

Miller Lite and vanilla cake mix, a Big Boar's diet

Before simply being big was Big Joe’s job, his days were spent at Pork 360, the family-operated Muscatine farm where Chelsea and her husband, Jake, work.

Like other teaser boars, Joe was charged with walking in front of sows and exuding his pheromones, which makes the females go into estrous and prepare for pregnancy. When these boars get too big, they get grumpy, Chelsea says, and are taken to harvest.

But Big Joe has always been uncharacteristically friendly and calm, Jack says. He likes back scratches almost as much as he likes napping and “chasing girls,” he adds. Jack’s even trained him to dance a bit.

“He is big and fat,” Jack says. “But he’s not really lazy. He will get up and run with you if you make him.”

By the time the Theobalds got the inkling they might have a star on their hands and started weighing Big Joe, he already tipped the scales at 700 pounds.

“We sort of looked at each other and thought, 'If we push this pig along, we just might have a Big Boar on our hands,'” Chelsea says.

So in preparation for the fair, Big Joe was “living the life of luxury,” Chelsea says.

He was on a feeder and could chow down whenever he wanted a snack. The Theobalds created special Big Joe concoctions mixing sweets — Honey Buns, individually wrapped apple pies, big chunks of Jell-O or, on special occasions, frosted Dunkin' Donuts — with ground feed. And anytime they’d have cobs left after sweet corn or rinds after watermelon, the scraps went straight to Big Joe.

But this porker’s favorite food by far was vanilla cake mix. “Oh, and beer,” Jack says.

The beer feedings were always handled by Jake, who often popped one right along with Big Joe. Miller Lite was Joe’s favorite, but mostly because that’s what Jake was drinking.

“He’s not actually that picky,” Chelsea says

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Don’t worry, despite all the food, Joe isn’t completely sedentary. In fact, Joe has to exercise. No matter the weather or Joe’s mood, Jack had to get him up and walking at least once a day — just to make sure his bones stay strong enough to carry the extra pounds.

Throughout winter and spring, the Theobalds had seen Joe gain upward of 2 pounds per day. But when a hot snap hit in June, Big Joe didn’t eat much, which stunted their push.

“That’s normal in the pig world. Pigs don’t sweat, so you have to sprinkle their back. That’s what cools them down,” Chelsea says. “So in those super-hot days, they just prefer to be lazy and they really don’t eat.”

Because Big Joe had reached only about 900 pounds, the family almost didn’t bring him to the fair. Chelsea had gone far enough as to cancel the vet’s paperwork, but then Ernie Barnes, superintendent of the swine barn, called, and said Big Joe was one of just two pigs in the race.

Without Big Joe, Sasquatch and his 86-year-old owner, Wilbur Kehrli, were just going to run — err waddle — away with the title.

With only two Big Boar entries, can the competition last?

This year was the second in a row when there were only two entrants in the Big Boar contest — down from previous years when five to 10 pigs took their turn on the scales.

Superintendent Barnes cautions that the low number is more coincidence than trend. After all, he says, the record for entrants was set within the past decade, in 2017, when 10 porkers threw their snout in the ring.

And the contest still draws the biggest and most engaged crowd that the swine barn sees all fair, he says.

“Somebody said, ‘Well, it's feed cost,’” Barnes says of the low entries. “I said, ‘Nah.’ If you're gonna feed a big boar, feed cost is not really a concern. They fed them powdered milk, doughnuts and Miller beer. You can't afford to feed that to a regular hog anyway.”

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Instead, Barnes pointed to a hot summer that kept weights down, and years of tough competition.

“This boar wins this year at 1,000 pounds. That's 300 pounds less than we've had winners in the past,” he says. “I mean, normally, they got to be in that 1,295 to 1,395 range, and so I think folks at home watching it are thinking, 'I'm not big enough to win, so why go.'”

But Chelsea also noted changes in the hog industry's breeding practices as a possibility for waning entries. More than 90 percent of all pig litters in the U.S. are sired with artificial insemination, according to a study by the National Institutes of Health. And with that becoming the primary method of bringing piglets into the world, a few “teaser” boars can service a large population of sows.

Some operations even use bottled pheromones, a practice that renders keeping boars on site entirely unnecessary.

“Boars are few and far between with A.I.,” Chelsea says. “People don’t keep boars around. They buy semen and breed pigs that way. It’s a whole different world where breeding used to be to where breeding is going.”

Not all the romance is gone from the pig world, however. This year’s Big Boar winner, Sasquatch, a 1,012-pound 3-year-old Red Wattle, is still a vital part of the breeding program for an operation owned by Charles Bieber and his son Zach, who farm near Waukon.

“He sired three or four litters of pigs just this year,” Barnes says. “So they were still breeding him at this advanced age and weight.”

A different kind of record: Excitement to show at 10 and at 86

Even though entrants to Big Boar were down from years past, the 2023 competition set a different kind of record: biggest age gap between human competitors.

“76 years' difference in two guys that want to show a Big Boar at the fair,” Barnes says.

“The best part of it is how excited Jack is to show. Then it just so happened that he's going against somebody eight times older than him, and that individual had as much excitement about it as Jack.”

Wilbur Kehrli and his family are well-known for kindness and always lending a helping hand in the swine barn. The Kehrlis have been in the industry for five generations, and Wilbur Kehrli has been coming to the fair nearly every summer since 1952, he told Iowa Agribusiness Radio Network.

And in a red-letter day, the absolute best part was meeting Mr. Kehrli, Jack says. They got to shake each other’s hand and pose for a photo with their ribbons after the show — and Kehrli even let Jack hold his whip.

“All he kept saying was, ‘Mom, I hope when I get to be that old I still get to do things that I truly love,” Chelsea says.

He’s got a good head start. At 10 years old, Jack was put in charge of figuring out feedings and keeping track of the daily gain Big Joe needed to reach the 894 pounds he weighed at the State Fair.

And Jack took on that task while he also worked three pigs, three goats and a buckle bottle calf for the fair; prepared to be a mentor for bacon buddies, a program that pairs 4-Hers with special needs kids to let them have the experience of showing; and played on his local baseball team.

“He has grown leaps and bounds,” Chelsea says of Jack’s experience with Big Joe. “He was already a really responsible kid prior to this, but working Big Joe helped him learn more about animal handling and understanding that he’s got to chore on him and make sure he’s getting up and moving.”

Since they left the fair on Sunday, Chelsea’s had to wash Jack’s bright red “Big Joe’s Crew” shirt a bunch. It’s all Jack wants to wear, she says, and all he talks about is getting back to the fair to see Joe again.

Almost eight decades is a long time away, Jack says, but he certainly hopes to still be coming to the fair and still entering a Big Boar when he’s Kehrli’s age. He already has his eyes on a pig for the contest a few years from now.

But he’s most focused on the near term: The Theobalds plan to bring Big Joe back to next year’s fair.

And Jack’s sure that with a few more beers and a little more cake mix, Big Joe will be a shoo-in for champion.

Kevin Baskins, the metro jobs reporter for the Des Moines Register, contributed to this article.

Courtney Crowder, the Register's Iowa Columnist, traverses the state's 99 counties telling Iowans' stories. Her State Fair food must-get is the ice cream brick known as the Bauder's Peppermint Bar. Don't be ashamed to have seconds! Reach her at ccrowder@dmreg.com or 515-284-8360. Follow her on Twitter @courtneycare.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Iowa State Fair: At 10, this pig farmer may help save Big Boar contest