Plan B Forum

BoSoxGal wrote:That’s a damned cute pig pictured at that link.

ex-khobar Andy wrote:

BoSoxGal wrote:That’s a damned cute pig pictured at that link.

I worry about you, BSG. You been drinking too much Sam Adams at those Red Sox parties?

BoSoxGal wrote:... They're also very intelligent and have distinctive personalities - as much so as dogs...

They have a reputation as filthy animals, sweating profusely while wallowing in mud. In fact they have a superpower

Reputation: Pigs sleep and root in faeces. Pigs sweat like pigs. Pigs are filthy animals. Pigs are pink. Male pigs can orgasm for half an hour.

Reality: These stereotypes are best explained by poor husbandry. In the wild, boars don't sleep and root in poo, they eat plants. They do wallow in mud but only because it's a good way to keep cool. Domesticated pigs are often pink, but only because we made them that way. Male pigs can ejaculate for minutes at a time.

"I don't eat nothin' that ain't got sense enough to disregard its own faeces." So says Jules Winnfield, the hitman played by Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction, explaining why he doesn't eat pork.

A group of wild boars at Basel Zoo in Switzerland has become famous for its food hygiene

Had Winnfield taken a moment to think, he might not have been so snarky about pigs. Rabbits happily snaffle their own faecal pellets, to give the relatively indigestible grasses a second passage through their digestive system, but nobody is rude about bunnies.

Wild boars – the ancestral stock from which we have fashioned our domesticated pigs – are omnivores, and not too fussy about what they eat. Yet 90% of their diet is made up of plant matter, so they probably don't have a particular taste for poo.

If a domestic pig occasionally munches on the odd turd, it's most likely because its cramped home makes it hard not to.

In fact, a group of wild boars at Basel Zoo in Switzerland has become famous for its food hygiene.

The animals were given apple slices coated in sand. Rather than eating them immediately, they carried them "to the edge of a creek running through their enclosure where they put the fruits in the water and pushed them to and fro with their snouts before eating."

The boars would never do this for clean apples. Even if they were really hungry, they still took the time to wash their food.

Aside from their food choices, pigs also have a reputation for being more generally filthy.

Boars will wallow in mud, but they probably do it to keep cool.

Rubbing off a layer of caked mud may also be a nifty way to remove ticks and other parasites

This is because pigs do not have functional sweat glands, which is worth remembering next time someone claims they are "sweating like a pig". This physiological reality means that pigs are at serious risk of overheating, and muddy water evaporates much more slowly than clean water.

"A pig, like any animal, is going to try to be comfortable," says Greger Larson of the University of Oxford in the UK. "If that means getting dirty to stay cool then that's what it's going to do. It would probably find other solutions but those haven't been provided because you're keeping them in relatively dense pens."

A layer of mud on the skin may serve other purposes too, acting like sun cream to prevent the skin from burning, or as an insect repellent to deter mosquitoes and the like. Rubbing off a layer of caked mud may also be a nifty way to remove ticks and other parasites.

Paradoxically then, wallowing in mud may make for clean rather than dirty skin.

BoSoxGal wrote:I forgot, I'm a dumb cunt who thinks she knows stuff, but really has no credibility with you on any subject.

So, here's the same information from BBC's Earth; if you follow the link and read the remainder of the article, you can also learn about the male pig's experience of orgasm. http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20150924 ... about-pigs

They have a reputation as filthy animals, sweating profusely while wallowing in mud. In fact they have a superpower

Reputation: Pigs sleep and root in faeces. Pigs sweat like pigs. Pigs are filthy animals. Pigs are pink. Male pigs can orgasm for half an hour.

Reality: These stereotypes are best explained by poor husbandry. In the wild, boars don't sleep and root in poo, they eat plants. They do wallow in mud but only because it's a good way to keep cool. Domesticated pigs are often pink, but only because we made them that way. Male pigs can ejaculate for minutes at a time.

Male pigs can orgasm for half an hour.