Fact Sheet: Pigs

Pigs by rajthesnapper

"[Pigs] have the cognitive ability to be quite sophisticated. Even more so than dogs and certainly three-year-olds." 

  - Professor Donald Broom of Cambridge University Veterinary School (2)

Cool Pig Facts:

• Pigs can live 9 - 15 years long (1)
• Pigs enjoy music (6)
• Pigs are as good at video games as primates (7)
• Their courtship ritual involves a song between the male and female (6)
• Mother pigs sing to their young to inform them that milk is flowing (2)
• Pigs are not dirty; they enjoy being clean (4)
• Pigs are the 4th most intelligent species of animal, after primates, dolphins and elephants (1)
• Pigs enjoy swimming over mud (2)

Swimming Pigs 2 by Nate Derrick

Pig Meat Industry

• Pigs are sent off at age 4-6 months to be killed for food (3)
• Female pigs are pinned down in stalls so that they cannot move around after giving birth (6)
• Pigs are not given the space to move around and root in soil, let alone swim (2)
• Up to 10% of breeding pigs are killed due to illness, lameness or not falling pregnant readily enough (2)
• A lot of pigs have their tails cut off (without anaesthetic) so that other pigs don't chew them off due to being so bored (5)
• Pigs are castrated without anaesthetic (5)

Pig biting a bar on its pen by Compassion in World Farming

Sources
(1) http://drbj.hubpages.com/hub/Pig-Facts
(2) http://www.savebabe.com/
(3) http://www.unleashed.org.au/animals/pigs.php
(4) http://www.thewonderpigs.com.au/facts.htm
(5) http://www.rspca.org.au/how-you-can-help/campaigns/pig-farming/
(6) http://www.worldanimalfoundation.net/f/Pigs.pdf
(7) http://chris-mclaughlin.suite101.com/the-intelligent-pig-a84448