Pig Facts
More Pig Facts Than You'll Ever Need To Know
We'll start with a few elementary pig facts, move on to some of the more unusual ones, and finish up with some pig inspired phrases, the origins of which may surprise you.
The words pigs, hogs, and swine are used interchangeably. In essence, a family of pigs is referred to as swine, and hogs are large, fully grown pigs. The male pig is a called a boar, the female a sow, and the baby a piglet. A group of pigs is a herd. A mother pig typically gives birth to eight to twelve piglets at a time. This group of piglets is called a litter, and she can give birth to two litters a year.
We often associate pigs with filth and sloppiness. It's not uncommon to see them role in the mud. At meal time, when fed a mixture of fruit and vegetable scraps, the food is sometimes called "slop" and feeding the pigs is sometimes referred to as "slopping the hogs".
In truth, given a choice, pigs are extremely clean animals, and do not like to create a mess where they eat or sleep. It's more often than not the pig's owner, and not the pig itself, who contributes to the messy environment. Pigs do like to roll in the mud however, but they do this to keep cool, since they have no sweat glands.
Pigs of course are best known as the supplier of pork, more of which is consumed than any other meat or poultry product in the world. Pigskin is highly valued in the manufacture of gloves and shoes, the hair or bristles are used in artist's brushes, and pig's bones are used for a number of things, from glue to bone china.
Pigs are also extremely intelligent animals. They can be taught to do tricks, roll over, race one another, and hunt. They will play with toys, and even appear to enjoy music. They are exceeded in intelligence only by humans, primates, dolphins and whales.
Pigs are responsible for a number of familiar descriptive sayings, leading us to some rather unusual, though interesting pig facts. For instance, the very words "pig" and "hog", implying greedy behavior. This comes from the behavior of baby pigs competing for food.
And two others: Before the Civil War, salt pork was often stored and distributed in large barrels. The practice congressmen used to obtain funds for their favorite projects became known as dipping into the pork barrel, hence the terms "pork barrel politics" and “pork barrel spending”. At about the same time, US Army personnel were regularly given rations of pork. The enlisted men generally received inferior cuts, while the better cuts, such as the top loin cuts ,were reserved for the officer's, who were considered to be living "high on the hog", in other words, living well.
Finally, here are two pig facts which even more illustrate the value pigs provide to us. There are several dozen medications, including insulin, which are made from pigs, and pig heart valves have successfully been implanted in humans, replacing defective human heart valves. A valuable animal, that pig.