Tell us: What do you think of this gigantic hog?

FRUITHURST, Ala. (AP) -- The huge hog that became known as "Monster Pig" after being hunted and killed by an 11-year-old boy had another name: Fred. The not-so-wild pig had been raised on an Alabama farm and was sold to the Lost Creek Plantation just four days before it was shot there in a 150-acre fenced area, the animal's former owner said.

AP

Jamison Stone poses Tuesday, May 29, 2007, next to the skull of an average-sized hog, left, and the skull of the 1,051-pound hog he killed May 3, in Oxford, Ala. The monster hog gained worldwide acclaim after it was harvested by Stone, a Pickensville, Ala., native, with a .50-caliber pistol on May 3 at the Lost Creek Plantation, a hunting preserve in Delta, Ala. (AP Photo/The Anniston Star, Stephen Gross)

Phil Blissitt told The Anniston Star in a story Friday that he bought the 6-week-old pig in December 2004 as a Christmas gift for his wife, Rhonda, and that they sold it after deciding to get rid of all the pigs at their farm.

"I just wanted the truth to be told. That wasn't a wild pig," Rhonda Blissitt said.

Jamison Stone shot the huge hog during what he and his father described as a three-hour chase. They said it was more than 1,000 pounds and 9 feet long; if anything, it looked even bigger in a now-famous photo of the hunter and the hunted.

Mike Stone said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press on Friday that he had been under the impression that the hog was wild, not farm-raised.

Telephone messages left Friday with Eddy Borden, the owner of Lost Creek Plantation, were not immediately returned.

Stone said state wildlife officials told him that it is not unusual for hunting preserves to buy farm-raised hogs and that the hogs are considered feral once they are released.

Stone said he and his son met Blissitt on Friday morning to get more details about the hog. Blissitt said that he had about 15 hogs and decided to sell them for slaughter, but that no one would buy that particular animal because it was too big for slaughter or breeding, Stone said.

Blissitt said that the pig had become a nuisance and that visitors were often frightened by it, Stone said.

"He was nice enough to tell my son that the pig was too big and needed killing," Stone said. "He shook Jamison's hand and said he did not kill the family pet."

The Blissitts said they didn't know the hog that was hunted was Fred until they were contacted by a game warden for the Alabama Department of Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries. The agency determined that no laws were violated in the hunt.

Phil Blissitt said he became irritated when he learned that some thought the photo of Fred was doctored.

"That was a big hog," he said.

©2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) -- Hogzilla is being made into a horror movie. But the sequel may be even bigger: Meet Monster Pig. An 11-year-old boy used a pistol to kill a wild hog his father says weighed a staggering 1,051 pounds and measured 9 feet 4, from the tip of its snout to the base of its tail. Think hams as big as car tires.

If the claims are accurate, Jamison Stone's trophy boar would be bigger than Hogzilla, the famed wild hog that grew to seemingly mythical proportions after being killed in south Georgia in 2004.

Hogzilla originally was thought to weigh 1,000 pounds and measure 12 feet long. National Geographic experts who unearthed its remains believe the animal actually weighed about 800 pounds and was 8 feet long.

Regardless of the comparison, Jamison is reveling in the attention over his pig.

"It feels really good," Jamison said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. "It's a good accomplishment. I probably won't ever kill anything else that big."

Jamison, who killed his first deer at age 5, was hunting with father Mike Stone and two guides in east Alabama on May 3 when he bagged Monster Pig. He said he shot the huge animal eight times with a .50-caliber revolver and chased it for three hours through hilly woods before finishing it off with a point-blank shot.

Through it all, there was the fear that the animal would turn and charge them, as wild boars have a reputation for doing.

"I was a little bit scared, a little bit excited," said Jamison, who lives in Pickensville on the Mississippi border. He just finished the sixth grade on the honor roll at Christian Heritage Academy, a small, private school.

His father said that, just to be extra safe, he and the guides had high-powered rifles aimed and ready to fire in case the beast, with 5-inch tusks, decided to charge.

With the animal finally dead in a creek bed on the 2,500-acre Lost Creek Plantation, a commercial hunting preserve in Delta, trees had to be cut down and a backhoe brought in to bring Jamison's prize out of the woods.

It was hauled on a truck to the Clay County Farmers Exchange in Lineville, where Jeff Kinder said they used his scale, recently calibrated, to weigh the hog.

Kinder's scale measures only to the nearest 10, but Mike Stone said it balanced one notch past the 1,050-pound mark.

"It probably weighed 1,060 pounds. We were just afraid to change it once the story was out," he said.

The hog's head is being mounted by Jerry Cunningham of Jerry's Taxidermy. Cunningham said the animal measured 54 inches around the head, 74 inches around the shoulders and 11 inches from the eyes to the end of its snout.

"It's huge," he said. "It's just the biggest thing I've ever seen."

Mike Stone is having sausage made from the rest of the animal. "We'll probably get 500 to 700 pounds," he said.

Jamison, meanwhile, has been offered a small part in "The Legend of Hogzilla," a small-time horror flick based on the tale of the Georgia boar. The movie is holding casting calls with plans to begin filming in Georgia.

Jamison is enjoying the newfound celebrity generated by the hog hunt, but he said he prefers hunting pheasants to monster pigs: "They are a little less dangerous."

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Associated Press writer Jay Reeves in Birmingham contributed to this report.

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On the Net:

Hogzilla movie: http://www.thelegendofhogzillathemovie.com

©2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

I again did not get to see this one. But from what I've read here. It sounds like someone should have a lot of food on the table. Only if they know how to pre-pair it. It can feed a lot of people who have little or nothing. Also make good gloves, shoes, belts, soap, oil, etc: But most people today would not know were to start at to save money. Why most today would not know were a pork chop, hot dog, bacon, pork stake, or BBC Rib's came from....M.C.S.

The poor pig was running in fear for 3 hours from a gun toting tot! This wasn't a sport it was a killing of an animal that had been raised in a barn by loving farmers and fed every day. Wouldn't you have run for your life if a child chased you with a gun shooting at you like a mad .... little boy!!! Kids and guns ... just think about when he grows up! POOR PIG!!!

I find it distasteful to learn this was shot on a hunting preserve. What kind of lesson does that teach this boy? Where is the skill of the hunt, the honor of the kill, when all the animals are fenced in?

Tell us: What do you think of this gigantic hog?