Facts About Pigs

Series Summary

Pigs are considered some of the filthiest, most unclean animals that walk the earth. Two major religions, Islam and Judaism, have strict dietary restrictions regarding the eating of pork, bacon, ham or other pig products: it is explicitly forbidden. Even for people who don’t practice these diets, pigs hold a certain stigma as dirty and disgusting animal, somewhere between a cockroach and a dog. And there is a great deal of truth to this characterization. Pigs are known to wallow in the mud for hours and hours on end…but this is because they cannot sweat. They have also been known to eat garbage, fecal matter, or other pigs, but their natural diet consists of a great deal of plant matter. Pigs often get a bad rap as a type of animal you don’t want around.

In these free videos on raising farm animals, learn the basic facts about pigs. Our expert naturalist will discuss some of the major characteristics of this species, as well as tips for raising them, including stages of pig growth, eating habits and digestion, housing , common problems, signs of disease, keeping pigs as pets, breeding and piglet care and development. By the time you finish watching these videos, you may be a little more willing to take another look at the animal we call “pig.”

Video Transcript

"Okay so we are going to talk about pigs. Pigs are again a very old domestic animal and they have been around for a long long time and thus, there are many different breeds of pigs. So we will talk about how come we have so many different breeds of pigs. We will talk about the life cycle of pigs. We will talk about what we know about pigs, why we keep pigs, why pigs have the notorious or infamous type of setting that they do, where the name pig comes from in terms why we call people pigs, why we talk about things like pig piles and being piggish and what it is about a pig that makes us all so interested in them. They are a fascinating animal. They are also everybody's favorite here at the farm when they come to visit but by the time they are grown, people don't like them anywhere near so much. They tend to think they are a little big, ugly and scary but when they are little, they are very cute. "