[4]: 431  Its origins are not clear; it has been suggested that the farmers of Piétrain may have recognised, and selectively bred for, a genetic mutation causing muscular hypertrophy.

[4]: 431 From about 1960, the Piétrain was also reared in Germany, principally in Baden-Württemberg, Nordrhein-Westfalen and Schleswig-Holstein; it is used as a sire for cross-breeding.

[5] In the 1980s and 1990s, researchers at the faculty of veterinary medicine of the Université de Liège used cross-breeding with stress-resistant Large White stock to develop a Piétrain strain without the gene for porcine stress syndrome (also called malignant hypothermia), to which the original stock was particularly susceptible.

The head is fairly short and not heavy, with forward-pointing semi-lop ears and a straight profile.

The coat is piebald, with a greyish white ground on which are dark spots ringed with pale grey-blue.