History Behind the Extreme Red Line
For some time there has been a lot of conjecture about the origins of this line. With so many people involved and such a long history it is understandable that some of the facts have become either forgotten or misconstrued. I decided to write this little article to set the record straight and to give people an ideal of how diverse this line really is and to give those who really deserve it credit for their contribution.
The story begins many years ago with a fellow by the name of Brian Box. Brian is a well known field collector and has hunted the North Texas area for many years. Brian collected in Clay County Tx some outstanding red hogs that he later sent to Regius Opferman. At some point later Regius bred this line and produced some outstanding red hets using a BHB line albino. These hets along with most of his hog collection were later sold off before he had a chance to breed them.
One of the Red Het Females from this clutch found her way to a breeder by the name of Ron Radloff. He later bred this animal to a high contrast BHB male and produced a handful of outstanding red hets and albino's. In the group were 3 albino's(1.2) that were then missexed by Chad Fuchs as 0.3 and they were sold to a few individuals one of them being Omar Rodriguez. By luck Omar had received the male which he was told was a female. Later Omar sold them to me and the missexing went unnoticed for a few months. Upon arrival I knew right away this hog was something very special and few months later I noticed the animal was a male. I later contacted Ron to get some info on the line. After seeing pics and learning the animal was missexed Ron angrily demanded that I return the animal that I bought from Omar to him??? Which was out of the question..this led to Ron having some misplaced bad feelings towards me.
Upon reviewing pictures of the parents I then realized that this animal was created by breeding a "not so red male" to a "very red" female..the result was quite impressive and led me to wonder what would happen if I could refine this by breeding two visually red animals from this line together.Obviously the red gene in this female is quite strong and dominant. The hunt was on to find more Regius line hets...and I found one..a large female that was owned by a man named Quinten who had loaned Don Shores her for breeding. Having been a customer of Don's for many years I approached him and told him my ideal ..that if we bred the two animals together it would produce the finest line of red hognose ever!! He agreed and several months later the 1st Extreme Reds were produced. Those animals combined with many others I had picked up along the way formed the genetic foundation of this line.This line would also go on to create very intense burgundy purple animals which I have labeled Purple Line Extreme's. The Purple Line 1st appeared with the 1st initial breedings of the Extreme Reds several years ago.
I hoped you enjoyed this brief article. If you have any questions feel free to email me.
Best Regards,
Justin Mitcham
