How pigs are raised

A piglet fights for a particular teat in its first hours, and keeps feeding from the same one.

stations: 4
things downstream: 17

The short version

Pigs are raised mostly on intensive farms, where thousands live in climate-controlled buildings. A sow farrows a litter, and piglets nurse about every 50 to 60 minutes. They are then fed until they reach market weight. Free-range and outdoor systems exist, but intensive units raise most of the pigs.

Breed the sows

Females reach sexual maturity at 3 to 12 months and come into heat every 18 to 24 days until they are bred. A sow builds a nest during the final 24 hours before farrowing, which is giving birth to a litter.
Nurse the litter

Piglets are born precocious with sharp teeth and fight for the front teats, which give more milk. Nursing happens about every 50 to 60 minutes, and each piglet keeps feeding from the same teat or small group of them.
Fatten in the barn

On intensive farms, commercial units house thousands of pigs in climate-controlled buildings. Pigs convert feed to meat more efficiently than cattle do, which helps keep pork cheaper.
Send to slaughter

More than one billion pigs are butchered each year worldwide, 100 million of them in the United States. They supply pork, bacon and ham, and the skin is used for leather.

End of the linePigs Next it goes into gelatin, hot dog, bacon and 5 more.

Worth repeating

Around 1.5 billion pigs are raised each year, producing some 120 million tonnes of meat.
Pigs have 1,113 genes for smell receptors, compared to 1,094 in dogs, and in Europe trained pigs find underground truffles.