Stop the Torture

[xIndigoSkyx]

GO POT BELLIES!!! I was at an auction this fall to sell my extra duck (took a poop laid of planning, who knew!) and they were selling baaby pot bellied piggies for ONLY $5!!! I was scratching there backs and there little fuzzy heads and my heart melted! I tried convincing my dad to get me one in lue of a dog but nooooo, their messy. Not as messy or even as smelly as my dogs that roll in there own crap and dead things.

 

[DUCKGIRL89]

I think it varies on individual pigs as well as the breed. I've been around quite a few pigs and have many friends who raise them. None of their pigs have been "monstrous". Many of them have been quite affectionate.

I Agree! We had a berksire boar, and a red waddle sow, that boar was the sweetest thing ever! He acted like a dog! he would come up and rub his head on our legs and everything, he was BIG though. kinda scary!, he passed away a bit ago though.

 

[DUCKGIRL89]

Quote: LMBO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Mine do that allll the time! lol

 

[DUCKGIRL89]

I just read the most horrific thing about this place ever! I was sitting there doing this >

<

These poor, poor birds! I wish they would at the leased stop pushing so much dang food down there mouths! Geez!

.....

 

[Miss Lydia]

I think it varies on individual pigs as well as the breed. I've been around quite a few pigs and have many friends who raise them. None of their pigs have been "monstrous". Many of them have been quite affectionate.

Thanks for clarifying that Kevin, AT least now I know not All pigs are that way. WOW

 

[RHRanch]

If you've ever raised pigs, your opinion will change... they are monstrous by nature... Cannibals, savages, bloodthirsty.... I distaste them. Actually, I love the way they taste!
- Boars have been known to literally eat their own offspring (or whatever other pigs' offspring) when they get hungry.
- Sows are totally careless mothers in general, and often squash there own sucklings whilst rolling of etc.
- Pigs literally will kill to drink blood. Literally. No this isn't a jest. Really.

I've raised a lot of pigs, and this is not the case of uncrowded happy pigs. This kind of behavior can be traced to 2 basic problems: Overcrowding/boredom/poor conditions. OR 2. Selecting stock with no regards to temperment and how the animals react to stress.

Furthermore, pigs are one of the most intelligent domesticated animals, smarter than dogs, up there with young children in terms of IQ. Also, sows given a proper breeding pen can and usually are excellent mothers. Pigs also do not like to be in their feces, left to their own devices they are very clean and will create a "potty" area for their toilet. However, most pigs are raised in close confinement and cannot get away from their own feces which mixes in with the soil. Because pigs do not sweat, they must wallow (roll) in mud/water to keep themselves cool and to protect themselves from sunburn. If they are kept in small pens filled with feces, they have no choice but to roll in it. I think we all know that thier owners are to blame if that happens. I had a pet boar that obeyed commands better than any dog I ever owned. He never was aggressive with me, but if he was scared he would run to me and cower behind me. LOL He was a production boar - the kind you find in most factory farms. I got him as a 2 day old because he was orphaned. He never attacked my other stock or people.

 

[RavenStorm]

I completely agree with RHRanch above. Breeding, boredom, bad management, high confinement, and learned behavior are the real reasons why pigs can be so violent. Breeding for temperament has gone totally by the wayside for pigs in favor of size and meat quality, so it's no surprise that they can be brutal animals. That said they are still the smartest critter on the farm (smarter than your dogs and human toddlers!), but that won't stop them from attacking and eating each other ... or you. There's a reason I will never raise pigs, and that reason is that on several occasions my life has been threatened by them in a very real way, even though I was not doing anything that in any way scared or threatened those animals. It felt like they actually "assumed" I was there to harm them in some way due to past incidents with other people and reacted ahead of time. They were all different breeds/genders/ages/sizes/etc. and I was doing very benign and non-threatening tasks in their pens while in my animal sciences classes at college, and yet I barely made it out by the skin of my teeth without injury more times than I can count. When the first rule your professor teaches you about an animal is "Don't fall down. If you don't get up quick enough, they'll try to eat you.", its time to be very cautious around said animal.

Anyway, to toss back in the original subject of foie gras ... I was under the impression that everyone knew how it was raised. Guess my assumption was wrong, but my family believed in telling kids the truth about what food really is and where it comes from at an early age. I thought that the force feeding was common knowledge, but I guess now that I think about it the modern masses want to keep that sterile boundary between them and their food so they cultivate a purposeful ignorance when it comes to food production. Like how everyone wants to eat their chicken mcnuggets but not know about the torture of factory farming (clipped beaks, overcrowding in filthy conditions, improper diet to force growth, terrifying drops down shutes to their death, scalding dips to remove feathers while most chickens are still half-alive, etc.

I know that the original way to get foie gras was to just feed the geese or ducks an extremely high caloric diet. Not good for them, but not force feeding them either. Then people started using corn, and then the hose to force feed them so they could get it done faster. I know there are a lot of people out there who don't care, they just love the taste. But living this close to LA there is also a humane/local foodie movement blooming here, and people are starting to demand the original old school foie gras. It takes longer and is WAY more expensive, but paying more to help alleviate the suffering of an animal that gave its life for you to eat is just good Karma in my book.

 

[agregg15]

That's horrible. People make me sick sometimes. I say we do the same to people that think there's nothing wrong with it.

 

[AquaEyes]

Below is a link to a post containing a (somewhat long) video of a talk given about foie gras, and how one man in Spain produces his in a very humane and respectful way, and was judged superior in a blind taste test, causing a bit of controversy.

http://simplegoodandtasty.com/2010/04/24/can-there-ever-be-humane-foie-gras

 

[hossfeathers]

Actually, fois de grais is an old traditional dish made from the livers of migrating waterfowl, which became engorged and fatty from the late-summer/early-fall feeding that waterfowl did in order to fatten up for the winter. Ducks and geese have a great deal of tolerance for this kind of overeating, which they would have to do in nature to survive. (It's not like Mamma Nature gives wild animals a steady diet day after day throughout the year.) Most fois de gras is produced on small family farms where the birds are hand fed, and literally come running to have the food stuffed down their gullets.

I think that people *should* think about what they eat, and that locally produced, humanely raised food should be a priority for people. However, making good decisions means being knowledgeable about what is actually going on - grain is a great winter food, corn is a good energy source, and if there is no grass on the ground and all the bugs are hibernating over the winter, the ducks and geese have to eat *something*.