Upon reflection, I'd like to retract what I said about farrowing pigs.  Piglet mortality would be a lot higher without gestation crates or stalls, but as to whether or not they could successfully breed in the wild, that may be possible.  I have no data. The fact that they are not selected for traits that promote survival in the wild, doesn't mean that they couldn't.  They would revert to a feral condition, however, as the individual breeds cannot be maintained once crossbreeding starts....obviously.


In that way, "living in the wild" for a domestic mammal would be just like having bees....crossbreeding with feral/other domestic stocks will happen.

Christina

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