CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) -- South Carolina's Middleton Place has a new breed of animal once seen at the Lowcountry plantation - Guinea hogs.

Guinea hogs were once the most common pig bred in the Southeast.

In recent years they almost became extinct. Imported from West Africa and the Canary Islands, the hogs were hardy and could survive on rough forage.

They are smaller and have more fat than hogs used now for meat and by the mid-20th Century were largely abandoned for food.

The plantation says it received two Guinea hogs from Gray Moore of Carolina Heritage Farms in Pamplico.

In 2007, Middleton brought back two water buffalo, animals used at the plantation before the Civil War.

(Copyright ©2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)