Betsy, the Bird Pig

Louisiana’s unique history and culture has long captured the imagination of the American people. But one hundred years ago, we became the focus of national attention, not for our beauty or food, but because of a quail-hunting pig named Betsy.

On Christmas Day, 1920, the Great Falls Tribune published an article about a pig owned by Tucker Gibson of Natchez, Mississippi. Gibson was a well-known hunter, and the newspaper claimed that he had come across a dead sow in Tensas Parish, Louisiana, that had a litter of piglets. Gibson brought the piglets home with him, and a quail dog with its own litter adopted one of them.

That may or may not be what really happened, because it seems that every newspaper that covered the story gave a different account of how Gibson came by the pig he named Betsy. Whatever its origin, Betsy began to think of itself as a dog, and preferred the company of its canine “siblings” over its own kind. When the young dogs were taken out on their first quail hunt, Betsy tagged along and demonstrated a talent for hunting.

According to Gibson, whenever a covey of quail was located, Betsy’s bristles would stand up on her neck and she would raise her right hoof and try to straighten her kinky tail just like a bird dog.

Gibson’s pointing porker became so famous that Gibson considered parlaying her into a fortune. In early 1921, it was reported that Gibson had traveled to the oilfields around El Dorado, Arkansas, to meet an oilman who was willing to trade an oil lease on thousands of acres for the talented pig. Gibson, however, ultimately refused to part with Betsy.

Betsy garnered so much attention that the New Orleans Times-Picayune humorously took issue with people associating her with Mississippi, where Gibson lived, rather than Louisiana, from which she hailed. According to the newspaper editor, “Mississippi is getting away with a lot of valuable publicity that should be Louisiana’s. . . . Mr. Gibson himself admits that this ‘hunting hog’ is a product of the Tensas swamps, on the Louisiana side of the Mississippi [River], and we cannot accept the owner’s theory that it was from the association with a Mississippi hound family that the razor-back developed hunting instinct. That eagerness, we contend, came from several generations of swamp life.”

With tongue firmly in cheek, the editor declared that annual floods had taught Louisiana hogs to search bushes and trees for bird eggs to suck. While the editor admitted that eggs were not the normal part of a hog’s diet, he claimed they might have learned to snatch them from the bushes or even gnaw down a bush or tree to get to the eggs or young birds when they were hungry.

Sooner or later, the editor predicted, Gibson would find Betsy climbing trees to get to nests. The editor bet Gibson that if he examined Betsy closely, he would find embryo claws growing from her hooves to allow her to climb better. “[W]ho knows but some day a hunter in the Tensas swamp may bring down a curly-tailed bobcat with an erect ridge of bristles down his back, that may have traced his ancestry to the tree-climbing bird-catching Tensas hogs.”

Eventually, Betsy’s devotion to hunting quail caused a nervous breakdown. According to a Kentucky newspaper, Gibson brought his prized pig to Kentucky to train for the Springfield dog trials, and Betsy did so well that he decided to put her in a vaudeville show. Gibson acquired some quail to use in the act, placed them in a cage, and came home.

When he returned to Springfield, Gibson discovered that Betsy had fallen into “nervous prostration.” According to Gibson, Betsy had found the caged birds and locked in a point for three days and nights without eating or drinking. The physical stress and mental strain brought on what was described as a “general collapse,” which left the Betsy in serious condition.

Fortunately, Betsy recovered and afterward made a public appearance, along with a menagerie of other talented animals, at a charity benefit sponsored by the Natchez Exchange and Rotary clubs. A Mississippi newspaper reported that “the exhibits attracted great attention.”

Betsy the bird pig was a national sensation for a few short years, but it is not certain today whether she really was a talented swine or just a hoax perpetuated by Gibson. Whatever the case, it was with sadness that the Missouri Herald reported in 1922 that Betsy, the “most famous four hundred pounds of swine in the world,” had drowned in a flood that inundated Concordia Parish when the Ferriday levee collapsed.

Dr. Terry L. Jones is a professor emeritus of history at the University of Louisiana at Monroe. For an autographed copy of “Louisiana Pastimes,” a collection of the author’s stories, send $25 to Terry L. Jones, P.O Box 1581, West Monroe, LA 71294.