When Mike Platt started raising wild boar six years ago he figured the unusual form of farming would come with its share of problems. What he didn’t count on was a problem that would be difficult to cope with and even more difficult to fix: the slaughtering of his animals by vandals.

Trouble for the Prince Edward County farmer started last January when heavy snowfalls followed by drifting brought the snow level up to the top of his extensive fencing. Some of the 300 boar housed on the back portion of Platt’s property were able to walk out onto the road. "Someone came by and shot one," he says, recalling the first in a series of similar incidents.

Platt and his family have 147 acres near Prince Edward Point, a stone’s throw from Lake Ontario. The area is punctuated by a number of cottage industries which fall into a category of their own. A few miles before Platt’s quiet property, motorists will pass by the Black River Cheese Factory, a squab farm, ostrich farm and cactus business.

The problem for Platt, as far as the vandalism is concerned, is that the main part of the operation, the animals, can’t be seen from the house. He says the bottom of his property is ideal for raising boar, an animal with completely different needs than more domestic breeds. Back there he has built nine pens, each between two and three acres in size. Even from the little-travelled side road nearby there’s no evidence of the animals. A series of thick mature evergreens make it all but impossible to tell that an intricate operation is at work only a few feet beyond the trees.

About a month after the first shooting, Platt lost a second animal. He says it was a "big male" he jokingly called Ivan the Terrible. Again, someone shot the boar, leaving the carcass where it lay. A series of other shootings followed with the latest happening in October. In July a pregnant sow and two piglets were shot and left to die.

Platt isn’t sure what to make of the shootings since in all but one of the incidents there’s been no evidence the vandals were looking to harvest the meat. He said he’s also arrived on more than one occasion to find someone has deliberately left gates open so the boar can get out. The county OPP are investigating but so far have no leads.

In spite of ongoing problems with vandals, Platt is committed to making the business work. Just recently he left his full time job as a graphics manager for a printing company in Belleville.

"I kept thinking I could still do (the boars) part time," says Platt, adding that the decision to leave a job with a guaranteed pay cheque didn’t come easily. He says he was becoming increasingly busy at work and the marketing end of Boars of Babylon, the business’s official name, was suffering.

Platt first became intrigued with the animals after attending an exhibition in Mexico some years ago. One of the exhibitors was a boar dealer from Winnipeg who Platt later visited to see how his operation worked. In 1994 he bought his first few European boars. And he says that while he loves the operation, making it work has never been easy. Family members and friends, he says, are not wholly supportive of what they see as a chancy venture. Consumers in general are not aware of the meat, making it difficult as a dealer to make money at it.

"I remember talking to a producer who said, ‘you’re going to have to go through an educational process’. I didn’t know what he meant, now I do."

Platt says there have been some successes, but progress overall is slow. He says that while boar is "sought after as a meat," in Quebec and in parts of Europe, demand locally is relatively low. He’s been supplying at least one restaurant in Toronto, catering to what he calls a "designer meat market," but adding more restaurants is difficult. "You have to have a chef who wants to use wild game," says Platt, remarking on how only certain people in the industry are even receptive to the idea of cooking with boar.

David Vaughan, a dealer in exotic meats, agrees education is the key to success for people like Platt. Vaughan and his wife, Darlene, own D& D Ostrich Ranch & Store in Deseronto. "We have a lot of people coming in and buying (boar) from basically every walk of life," says Vaughan, who stocks a total of 12 different types of exotic meats. "The only thing we have to do is to educate the public."

Vaughan says most of the animals he deals with are "free fed," making the end product "a healthier type of meat." He says the meat is also generally lower in fat than more traditional meats. People who are aware of the benefits will buy "large quantities" of different products at the store, says Vaughan. But he is often asked questions about the raising of the animal and health details such as fat and cholesterol counts. He says once people learn about the meat and how to cook it, they’re more than willing to try it. Boar sells for about eight dollars a pound, significantly less, says Vaughan, than the top cut of buffalo, which goes for about $22 a pound.

Platt says this year marks the first time he’s reached "critical mass" where there are enough animals to satisfy whatever market he’s targeting. That hasn’t always been the case. He says before he realized he’d need to have at least 300 boar, he was trying to supply a couple of restaurants in Toronto but kept running out of meat. Unlike domestic pigs, which go to market between "six and nine months old," the boar isn’t ready until about two years, says Platt. So he learned the hard way he always needs to have a reasonable supply.

The boars live all year around in their pens, finding warmth in each other and in the surrounding cedar trees. Platt says their diet consists of oats, barley and apples in the summer, corn in the winter and whey from the nearby cheese factory "nine months of the year." Three times a week he picks up the whey using a 1,200 gallon tank attached to the back of a large truck. Platt says the size of the pens would have to be increased if the animals were living instead off the land.

"If I didn’t want to have to feed them, if I wanted them to fend for themselves, I would need five acres per animal."

At any given time he says he keeps about four breeding males.

Females are pregnant for "three months, three weeks and three days," with new moms producing litters of between two and four piglets. Weather, for the most part, isn’t a problem. "I’ve seen them give birth at minus 28," says Platt, adding that the only time piglets seem to feel discomfort is when conditions are unusually wet and cold.

Not far from where the pens are located, Platt also has a hunt camp which he operates with a partner. Until he’s able to find a "meat purveyor" who can successfully market the boar, Platt says the camp provides him with enough money to stay in business.