🐾 Domestic Pig

Domestic Pig

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Who it is

• Scientific name: Sus scrofa domesticus
• Family & relatives: A farm animal in the family Suidae, descended from the wild boar and related to warthogs and other wild pigs.
• How to spot it: A round, sturdy animal with a flat snout, small eyes, floppy or upright ears, a curly tail, and often pink or spotted skin.

Its body & abilities

• Size: About 0.9 to 1.8 m long depending on the breed.
• Weight: Usually about 50 to 350 kg, with some big breeds even heavier.
• Body & adaptations: Its strong flat snout has a keen nose and a tough tip perfect for rooting and digging in the soil.
• Top speed: Faster than it looks, a pig can run up to about 17 km/h (11 mph) in a short dash.
• Strength: Strong and sturdy, it can push, dig, and root up hard ground with its powerful snout and body.
• Senses: An outstanding sense of smell and good hearing, though its eyesight is only fair.
• Growing up: Piglets are born able to walk, nurse from their mother, and grow quickly to adult size within a year.

Where it lives

• Habitat: Farms, barns, pens, and pastures cared for by people, with mud or shade to keep cool.
• Where in the world: Raised on farms all over the world, in nearly every country.
• Territory: Lives in the farm space people provide, and pigs settle into a familiar pen and social order.

What it eats

• Diet: An omnivore that eats a wide mix of plant and animal foods and drinks plenty of fresh water.
• Favorite foods: Grains, vegetables, fruit, roots, and farm feed, plus insects and scraps it roots up from the ground.
• How it hunts: Not a hunter; an omnivorous farm animal that roots in the soil with its snout to find roots, grubs, and tasty bits.

How it behaves

• How it moves: Walks and trots on four short sturdy legs with small hard hooves and can run in quick bursts.
• When it is active: Active by day, rooting and feeding, then resting or wallowing in mud to stay cool.
• Family life: Very social and smart, living in family groups; a group of pigs is called a herd or a drove.
• How it talks: Communicates with grunts, squeals, and oinks that signal greetings, hunger, or alarm to the group.
• Babies: After about a 114-day pregnancy the mother sow has a litter of usually 8 to 12 piglets, which she nurses and protects.

Its place in nature

• Role in nature: An important farm animal that gives food and, by rooting, helps turn over soil; on farms people care for and protect it.
• Conservation: Not a wild animal, so it has no conservation status; it is one of the most common farm animals on Earth.
• Dangers: On farms it depends on people for food, shelter, and health care to stay well.

Life & legacy

• How long it lives: Often 15 to 20 years when kept as a companion, though farm pigs usually live shorter lives.
• In our culture: A friendly farm favorite in stories and cartoons, and known as one of the smartest of all farm animals.
• Where to see it: On farms, at petting zoos, and in agricultural fairs where pigs are shown and cared for.
• Fun fact: Pigs are very clever animals that can learn their own names and even play simple video-style games with their snouts.