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PIGS
Our 2009 PIGS:
Wilbur and Charlotte!
We were born on
June 15, 2009. We love to eat, play and sleep. We grown very fast.
A male is called
a boar.
A
female is called a sow.
A baby is a
piglet.
Pigs are the
fastest growing farm animal.
When the weather
gets warm, we will have fun in our mud puddle. The mud will keep us cool
and protect us from insect bites.
There are about
73 different breeds of pigs in the U.S.
Pigs have a great
sense of smell, but poor eyesight. Their hair is called bristles.
Farmers feed pigs
corn, wheat, oats and barley. They also like veggies, leftover bagels
and birthday cake!
Pigs
originated in parts of Europe and Asia and were first domesticated in
China about 9,000 years ago. They were brought to America in
the 1500s with Spanish explorers.
Pigs will go to
the bathroom in one place which is well away from where they eat and
drink.
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More facts
about pigs:
-
The terms hog, swine, and pig are
often used interchangeably for these animals.
- Pigs do
not have functional sweat glands. They use water or mud
for the purpose of staying cool in hot weather.
- Pigs do
not prefer to sit in mud. In fact, they prefer
cleanliness much more than other animals. They use the
mud only as a coolant in summers.
- The
thick but sensitive skin is partly covered with coarse
bristles and exhibits a wide range of color patterns.
- They
grow and mature rapidly, hogs have a short gestation
period of about 114 days, and they produce large numbers
of young each time they give birth, usually 6 to 12
piglets.
- Many
experts consider pigs to be more trainable than dogs or
cats.
- The
largest pig till date was a Poland-China hog, named ‘Big
Bill’. It weighed 2,552 lbs and had a height of 5 feet
and a length of 9 feet.
- The
scream of a frightened pig can measure 115 decibels,
higher than the taking off noise of a jet engine (113
decibels).
- Even
though pigs have four toes on each hoof, they walk on
only two of the toes. This makes them look as if they
are tiptoeing.
- There
are 800 million pigs in the world. China has the
lsot pigs in the world. In the United States, Iowa
raises the most pigs---15 million.
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