The Civility of Swine

For everything that is annoying about pigs (and the list is indeed very long) – they are surprisingly civilized with one another. They are rarely aggressive, and bullying has yet to ever be a problem for us. Introducing new pigs to an established group, like we did this week, can be as easy as just opening the trailer door. Of course, having plenty of food helps keep the peace with all our animals! Not exactly angels, the bigger pigs will always assert their right to eat the best food at the best spot - that’s just a given.  I’ve watched as a mother pig lifted her own piglets up, and out of the way, using her powerful snout to fling them so she could get to the food. One such airborne piglet landed several feet away upside down in the water trough and had to be rescued - but it clearly wasn’t personal. It’s never mean spirited- and it’s rather predictable.

Piglets are fast learners and soon know better than to ever come between mama and her food. Other than that, there don’t appear to be a lot of societal rules. Mother pigs will allow another sow’s offspring to nurse, something our sheep would never do. We’ve had two nursing sows lay facing each other, hoof to hoof, like a two-sided dairy bar with both litters of piglets laying between them, happily nursing on whichever mom was closest. Pigs seem genuinely to like each other’s company and spend a lot of time sleeping all together in one very large pig pile.

Chickens are the other extreme. They can actually be quite brutal to each other.  The new hens that we’ll be getting in a few months will require several days of acclimating before they can be safely introduced to the established flock. The newcomers would otherwise be immediately attacked and if they don’t capitulate and run off, they’d be beaten into submission by multiple members of the flock. Even insiders can quickly fall out of favor. As soon as one of our hens appears sick or injured, we remove it from the rest of the flock, otherwise it’ll get picked on relentlessly, and quite possibly bullied to death. Our hens always have plenty of food available and unlimited freedom, but it's in their nature to have a pecking order and to keep everyone in their place.

Just from watching where the sun sets on our horizon, I know the solstice is almost here. The days will soon be getting brighter as we once again tilt ever closer to the light. As Anne and I make our own preparations for this complicated holiday season, we aspire to channel the civility of our inner swine and eschew the discourse of our feathered friends

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