A pig life

When you are a pig you stay on a farm or in the wild. When in
their natural surroundings not on factory farms pigs are social,
playful, protective animals who bond with each other, make nests,
relax in the sun, and cool off in the mud. Pigs are known to dream,
recognize their own names, learn tricks like sitting for a treat, and
lead social lives of a complexity previously observed only in
primates. Many pigs even sleep in pig piles much like dogs. Some
love to cuddle and others prefer space. People who run animal
that include pigs note that they are more similar to humans than
you would guess. Like humans, pigs enjoy listening to music,
playing with soccer balls, and getting massages. Most people
rarely have the opportunity to interact with these outgoing,
sensitive animals. These pigs spend their entire lives in cramped,
filthy warehouses under the constant stress of intense
confinement and are denied everything that is natural and
important to them. Mother pigs sows spend most of their
miserable lives in tiny gestation crates that are too small for them
to turn around in. They are impregnated again and again until
their bodies give out and are then sent to slaughter. Piglets are
torn from their distraught mothers after just a few weeks. Their
tails are chopped off, the ends of their teeth are snipped off with
pliers, and the males are castrated. No painkillers are given to
ease their suffering. The pigs then spend their entire lives in
extremely crowded pens on tiny slabs of filthy concrete. When the
time comes for slaughter, pigs are forced onto transport trucks
that travel for many miles through all weather extremes. Many die
of heat exhaustion in the summer or arrive frozen to the inside of
the truck in the winter. According to industry reports, more than 1
million pigs die in transport each year, and an additional 420,000
are crippled by the time they arrive at the slaughterhouse.
Because of improper stunning methods, many pigs are still
conscious when they are dumped into scalding-hot water, which is
intended to remove their hair and soften their skin.
A typical pig has a large head with a long snout which is
strengthened by a special prenatal bone and by a disk of cartilage

at the tip. The snout is used to dig into the soil to find food and is
a very acute sense organ. There are four hoofed toes on each
trotter foot, with the two larger central toes bearing most of the
weight, but the outer two also being used in soft ground. The
dental l formula of adult pigs giving a total of 44 teeth. The rear
teeth are adapted for crushing. In the male the canine teeth form
tusks, which grow continuously and are sharpened by constantly
being ground against each other. Occasionally, captive mother
pigs may savage their own piglets, often if they become severely
stressed some attacks on newborn piglets are non-fatal. Others
may cause the death of the piglets and sometimes, the mother
may eat the piglets. It is estimated that 50% of piglet fatalities
are due to the mother attacking, or unintentionally crushing, the
newborn pre-wean pigs are omnivores, which means that they
consume both plants and animals. In the wild, they are foraging
animals, primarily eating leaves, grasses, roots, fruits, and
flowers. In confinement, pigs are fed mostly corn and soybean
meal citation needed with a mixture of vitamins and minerals
added to the diet. Traditionally they were raised on dairy farms
and called mortgage lifters due to their ability to use the excess
milk as well as whey from cheese and butter making combined
with pasture. Older pigs will consume three to five gallons of
water per day. Domesticated pigs, called swine, are raised
commercially for meat generally called pork, hams, gammon or
bacon, as well as for leather. Their bristly hairs are also used for
brushes. Due to their common use as livestock, adult swine have
gender specific names: the males are boars and the females are
sows. In Britain, the word hog can refer to a castrated adult male
pig.

Thank you