Who are pigs?
Learning more about these incredible yet misunderstood animals.
Pigs are socially complex.
Studies of pig cognition, emotional intelligence, social hierarchies, and problem solving ability show that pigs are more like humans than nearly every other animal on the planet.
Respect the matriarch
Pigs live in matriarchal communities and often defer to leaders who are fair, charismatic, and older. Size and power are not the only factors that pigs care about! Some of our most respected matriarchs are smaller, senior gals.
Socially motivated
A pig’s social life is everything! From just a few days old, piglets will challenge each other to determine their social hierarchy. Their social hierarchy helps determine access to resources like the best food or places to sleep. Their social hierarchy is fluid and may change with other factors like illness or hormones, but once a pig finds their place, they are usually content. A pig doesn’t have to be “on top” to be happy.
Lifelong partners
Pigs bond deeply with other pigs, humans, and other animal companions. In fact, many of the pigs in our care who survived trauma remain steadfast companions to this day. Pigs also grieve outwardly when their family members pass away, and often slump into depression. They may do the same when their family members abandon them.
Pigs are Brilliant.
Being a “pig” is colloquially used as a derogatory term to imply someone is lazy or eats too much. In fact, it should be used to identify one of their most powerful traits - that they consistently place among the top 4 smartest animals, behind cephalopods, dolphins, and chimps, and outranking every other domestic animal.
Pigs are socially and emotionally complex, similar in their cognitive ability to a 3 year old human child. They’re aware, complicated, and great problem solvers.
Have you seen the recent study in which pigs learned to play and win video games, both for reward and social contact?
Pigs are handsome!
Pigs are inspirational
The oldest piece of figurative art in the history of the world was recently discovered inside a cave in Indonesia. The subject? A huge, beautiful pig! So there you have it, pigs created art.
Pigs are resourceful.
Pigs are some of the most adaptive and resourceful animals, constantly refining their survival skills to thrive.
How do they build their houses?
You know the story….straw, sticks, and bricks. Pigs in Canada have been spotted building pigloos in the snow to survive the harsh winter.
Use of Tools
Pigs were recently documented using tools to perform tasks. These Visayan warty pigs in captivity were observed using sticks to dig holes, and you can see the footage here.
Clean
Pigs value sanitation for their health & others. From birth, they seek bathroom areas that are separate from their eating and sleeping areas. When pigs are kept in extreme confinement, like in factory farms, they are forced to defecate, sleep, and eat all in the same cruel space, but this is something completely against their nature.
Dirt is something else! They love to coat themselves in mud as a protectant against sun and heat because they can’t sweat to cool themselves. It’s practical and fun!
Pigs are compassionate parents.
As mothers, pigs are protective, sensitive, and doting, and even sing to their babies as they nurse. Rumors of pigs being bad mothers come from factory farms where they are confined to gestation crates, unable to move or turn around or properly nurse their infants. When left to their own devices, pigs are incredible mothers.
Pigs are amazing. so why do we treat them with such cruelty?
Please know that you have the power to make difference in the future of these animals, to help put an end to the pig and farm animal exploitation that happens through agriculture and breeding.
Pigs are just like humans: they are loving, opinionated, silly, fussy, clever, and emotional. They are our kindred companions on this earth. Most of all, they are worthy of respect and dignity just the way they are.
