Social Pigs
For better or for worse,
A pig is a pig,
and ever more
shall be it so.
Our new home in Encinitas, with 2.5 acres, had once been a hippy commune although we bought it from a local shoe salesman. The first animal member of our yet-to-be-established farm community was Tabitha, a month old black and white spotted hybrid piglet whom we bought from a farmer east of Olivenhain. Tabitha lived under the house and had the freedom to go anywhere she chose. We didn't yet have a pigsty. She soon befriended the two labradors next door, and they became best of friends. The three of them ran everywhere together, through the thousand-acre Ecke farm, whenever they had the inclination. They were inseparable. Surprisingly, the pig with her short legs could keep up with the long-legged labradors without apparent difficulty.
On one occasion we noticed Tabitha missing. This worried us considerably as we feared that one of the Mexican workers on the Ecke farm might have decided to trap her and make a meal of her. She was just the right size then - about the size of the fully-grown labradors, only rounder and more dense. The next day, and the next, there was no sign of her, but on the fourth day, I by chance went into the goat shed to find my beloved pig laying exhausted, but unharmed, in the dark enclosure. We didn't know how long she'd been there and never did get the story, as she didn't want to discuss her adventures with us.
Our few neighbors all knew Tabitha for her dog-like impulses, as the three musketeers roamed freely through their unfenced yards. But a pig is a pig, and, eventually, she grew and began to display characteristics distinctive from those of her two friends. She took to tipping over garbage cans for tasty morsels that might or might not appeal to her doggie buddies. If they did, she would happily share the booty with her friends. Pigs and dogs have senses of smell over a thousand-fold more sensitive than those of humans so they can detect succulent morsels easily. Unfortunately, the neighbors didn't find Tabitha's newly developed activity pleasing, and we were informed that we should restrict the freedom of our pig. I built a large pigsty with a 4-5 foot fence, and Tabitha was sadly separated from her two best friends. There was nothing she could do about this, but the dogs, missing their companion, regularly jumped the fence to be in with her. Their days of adventure were over, but friendship lived on.
Eventually, we decided to acquire a male pig to provide Tabitha with real piggy companionship and a mate. However, how we acquired Mort (named after my friend, the bee man, Mort Blakeston) is another interesting story. The Steinberg lab at the UCSD Medical School used experimental "mini" piglets to conduct research on atherosclerosis and cholesterol metabolism because pigs and humans have very similar metabolic characteristics. For this purpose, the piglets were infused with radioactive precursors, and the metabolism of their fats was followed for weeks thereafter with the pigs strapped down so the tubes would not become dislodged during the experiments. One of the graduate students in the Steinberg lab was a friend, and he considered it an awful shame that each pig, by regulation, had to be sacrificed at the end of the experiments. He secretly (and illegally) decided to give me one of the pigs when its research-related purpose had been fulfilled. Thus, Mort became the Saier farm's second porcine inhabitant.
Mort lacked Tabitha's pleasant personality although his initial mistrust of humans gradually waned over the years that we had him. He was your typical pig and liked to eat; he grew quickly. Pigs become sexually mature at about 6 months of age, and Tabitha and Mort soon fell in love in spite of their age and initial size differences. The outcome of their romance was over a dozen litters of piglets, 8 the first time, but exactly 12 for each of the litters thereafter. They were an emotionally well-matched pair, and she was a wonderful bearer and mother. Moreover, Mort and Tabitha almost never argued; when they did exhibit significant differences, Mort would usually defer to Tabitha. He was easy going and congenial; a fight just wasn't worth the effort. In this respect Mort resembled my father.
Every farmer knows that the gestation period of a pig is 3 months, 3 weeks and 3 days. Further, one can always tell when a sow is ready to give birth because her teats fill up with milk just one or two days before the birthing. We had read (in my pig book) that the boar should be separated from the sow before the piglets are born as a boar may attack the young and kill them, so several days before the expected birth date, I removed him and restricted him to the fenced in lower half acre where we had put in a 30 yard long, 10 foot deep pond that filled up with rain water in the winter months.
Mort went down to his new home without protest. He particularly enjoyed frequent swims, swimming slowly and contentedly from one end of the pond to the other, whereupon I came to know that Mort was a pig after my own heart. It is commonly believed that pigs like to wallow in mud, but this is only partly true. They would much rather swim in CLEAN water if available, and they resort to mud only when water is not available. You see, pigs have practically no sweat glands; sweat glands are found in numbers only around the snout, so pools of water are used to keep them cool. It is exactly for this reason that pigs need little or no drinking water. If they are fed fruits and vegetables, they get all the fluids they need.
Next to Mort's half acre was the sturdy white fence that separated the Saier estate from the Ecke estate. At the time of Mort's residence there, the Mexican farmers who rented the Ecke land, grew acres and acres of zucchini squash adjacent to Mort's playground. Only the choicest small squash were plucked for market. The rest grew to enormous proportions and were later plowed under. I would go next door and throw a few of these large squash over the fence, and Mort's nutritional needs were satisfied. Of course, pigs enjoy rooting around, so there was plenty of variety. Mort grew, eventually becoming larger and thicker than his older but more slender wife. He was no minipig at all, but the researchers didn't know the difference and paid top minipig prices for a maxipig that should have cost much less.
The day our first litter of piglets was born was a memorable day. Again, I had instructions from my pig book which informed me that pigs often need assistance in giving birth. I therefore located a willing vet in case of emergency, and when Tabitha's teats filled up with milk I phoned him to let him know that the joyous day was almost upon us. The next morning I went down to the sty, looked at Tabitha and was shocked to see half a piglet sticking out of her, obviously stuck. I ran up to the house in a panic and called the vet who came as quickly as possible. By the time I got back down to the sty, 4 healthy little piglets were walking around unhindered. By the time the vet arrived the job was done. We still paid $50 for the visit. None of our sows, in fact none of our other animals as well, ever needed assistance in delivering their offspring.
From my pig book I learned that piglets should receive iron shots shortly after birth or they would become anemic. This is because sow's milk is deficient in iron, although this is not true of most other mammals. Accordingly, we gave the newborns iron supplements. Subsequent litters never got iron shots because we were just too lazy. But the piglets of these subsequent litters were never anemic. Why? Because piglets raised in a natural setting - in the dirt - get all the iron they need by groveling around in the soil. Only piglets that are raised in sterile concrete pens need iron supplements.
Soon after our granddaughter, Hazel, was born to our daughter Amanda and her husband Greg, she developed severe asthma. This surprised me because no one in our or Greg's family had ever had asthma. Then I learned that the incidence of asthma and other allergies was increasing dramatically in the human population. It seemed likely that an environmental pollutant was responsible.
To find out if this might be true, I scanned the scientific literature to determine if an answer was at hand. Studies first showed that increased incidences of asthma occurred in developed countries but not undeveloped countries, so it seemed that the causative pollutant was not distributed worldwide. Then I learned of studies in the U.S. showing that while kids of rich and middle class people developed asthma with increased frequency, kids of the lower classes didn't. It seemed obvious that the pollutant was something that the lower classes couldn't afford. Finally, I learned of pig studies: piglets raised in a natural environment with plenty of dirt had low incidences of asthma and allergies, but piglets raised in sterile environments, comparable to those in which upper and middle class families raised their kids, developed asthma and allergies with frequencies like those of the children. It was concluded that exposure to unsterile dirt led to healthy immune systems that prevented the development of these allergies. Pigs had again helped us to better understand ourselves.
Domestic sows usually have 12-14 teats and about 12 piglets per litter. In the first 3 or 4 days, the piglets compete for the best teats, but after this period, each piglet suckles from his or her own teat (although I've noticed occasional cheating). Because the "hind titty" has the least milk, the piglet relegated to that titty will grow more slowly; often the runt gets the less favorable teat, adding insult to injury. Nevertheless, the runt can catch up with the others once the piglets start eating solid food.
Although pigs are reasonably equitable and agreeable when resources are plentiful, newly born piglets establish a hierarchical social order of dominance usually within a few days of birth. When food is in scarce supply, or when the piglets are engaging in rough mischievous play, their dominance relationships become apparent. This "pecking" order can last for life. An example of this was provided by an interesting but comical experience. Usually with each litter of piglets, I would let the piglets nurse for two or three months, and then give them away or sell them before the arrival of the next litter, almost exactly 5.5 months after the previous one. Tabitha and Mort were very regular! On one occasion a little girl and her mother came to choose a piglet for a pet. Of course the little girl wanted the smallest piglet, the runt, and this little piggy was the one that left the litter to become a temporary loved one. Almost all of my giveaway piglets, meant to be pets, came back after achieving a certain size. When this piggy returned to the litter a month or two later, he was at least twice as big as any of the other littermates that had had to compete with their siblings for food. Nevertheless, this runt still knew its place at the bottom of the pecking order and always ate only when the others let him.
Now back to Mort. You recall that Mort moved down to the fenced in bottom half acre a few days before the piglets were born. There he remained contented - contented to stay in his country club setting and lead the life of an opulent bachelor. This lasted until the day the piglets were born. As soon as he heard the squeals of the piglets, Mort broke out of his pen. The electric fence I had put up around the half-acre plot proved to be no significant deterrent. He broke through, came up to the fence that surrounded the sty and let out a series of mournful oinks. It was obvious he wanted in. Did he want to attack the piglets? Would he kill or maim them? Or would he accidentally sit on one and squash it? Because of such concerns, I returned Mort to his country club. However, three or four times in the next couple of days Mort again broke out to remain poised at the gate of the sty, clearly wanting to get in. Finally, I decided to give in, keeping a close eye on him in the process. Did Mort confirm our fears and the concerns of my pig book and go after the piglets? Would Mort and Tabitha confront each other with a new basis for conflict now that the kids had arrived? The single answer to these questions and all other concerns was a resounding "No." Mort just wanted to be with his family! He proved the most gentle, careful and loving father you have ever known. He let them eat first and protected them as did Tabitha if danger in the form of dogs, coyotes, opossums or raccoons was near. On one occasion during an exceptionally heavy rainstorm, I went down to check on the piglets. The protected, roofed part of the sty was completely under water, and Mort was lying in the cold mud on his stomach. The piglets were all on his back, enjoying the only warm dry spot in the pen.
Pigs became a primary theme of the Saier farm. People often asked me questions about them. The most frequent question was: "Just how smart are pigs, anyway?" My answer might be "pretty damn smart," although I couldn't say just HOW smart. I'd guess they're about as smart as the smartest dogs or the stupidest Americans. However, one of my Horticulture and Animal Husbandry (HAH; Bio23) students wanted to find out just how smart they are. He devised a machine for measuring the intelligence of our piglets, and the 12 piglets of one litter became the subjects of his experiment. His machine consisted of a set of three levers (A, B and C) that the piglets could push with their noses. This device could be set so that any sequence of pushed levers (A, B, A; A, C, B or C, B, A, for example), when correctly pushed, would give the piglet a reward. The reward would be a cherry tomato or a strawberry or a grape that would drop to the ground where the piglet could get it. The students spent hours with the piglets and eventually wrote up a report (each student had to both do a farm project and write a research paper to get a good grade). The most important conclusions were that when the correct sequence of lever pushing was changed, it would take a hungry piglet only 3‑7 minutes to figure it out. We could show that 6-month old pigs were less efficient at learning a new sequence than 2-month old piglets. Moreover, one piglet could communicate his discovery to another when the latter was newly introduced into the experimental cage with the former. Exactly how these feats were accomplished was not determined, but we did show that all 12 piglets exhibited similar learning abilities, and that piglets that were either too hungry or not hungry enough would learn more slowly.
Recently, I observed two of my cello pupils, one a 35 year-old man, the other his 10 year-old son. While the boy could quickly (within a few minutes) determine by trial and error, just as the piglets had done, the set of 3 numbers (buttons) that had to be pushed sequentially in order to get the door to the Special Care Unit in my mother's retirement home open, the father seemed to be much less adept. Why, the boy was just as smart as the piglets! But it seems that human adults, like pigs, are much less able to learn new tasks than their young offspring; when 30, they're probably well over the hill.
My pig book included an extensive table that listed all the things pigs like to eat, and what they wouldn't eat. When we first got Tabitha, I observed that she had very definite preferences; in fact, she was a very fussy pig. There were lots of things she wouldn't eat. Comparing her preferences to those described in my book quickly revealed that there was a very poor correlation. Moreover, when Tabitha gave birth, her piglets ate lots of things she hadn't, and then she learned from them, that things she had previously avoided were really quite good after all! After a few litters, she'd eat almost anything. The only things she never came to like were raw brussels sprouts and large onion bulbs. I had to agree with her; brussels sprouts and onions taste terrible unless doctored up. These observations seemed to confirm my contention that the young have as much or more to offer the old than the other way around. All our analyses also suggested that pigs and humans have a lot in common!
These are all true stories: stories of pigs and people that helped to convince me that they and we are not very different. Our similarities far exceed our differences. The instinctual behaviors of animals can tell us much about our subconscious inclinations, and while their intellectual and emotional lives may differ from ours quantitatively, they certainly do not differ qualitatively. I cannot help feeling a sense of unity with all living creatures, and this unifying consciousness is something I'm sure I share with many other people who have come in close emotional contact with animals. Animals have much to offer us; they are reliable companions, often more trustworthy than their human counterparts. They also prove to be empathetic friends and wonderful teachers.