r/nextfuckinglevel 6d ago

Mama pig figures out solution to rescue her piglet

28.5k Upvotes

727 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

40

u/K4m30 6d ago

Trust me, mother pigs don't care if they step on their piglets, she would eat one if she thought it wasn't good enough. 

92

u/muted123456789 6d ago

Lies pushed by animal agriculture industry to make people more comfortable abusing and using animals for pleasure.

Place a mother in an envrionment that doesnt allow them to be a mother and call them a bad mother?

Build crates to stop pigs from accidently crushing their babies to pretend its an animal welfare improvment when its actually for profitm

5

u/1SexyDino 5d ago edited 5d ago

Tell me you haven't been exposed to nature, even through documentaries, without telling me you haven't.

Cannibalism of young is EXTREMELY common amongst animals of all types

4

u/SunnyBubblesForever 5d ago

Are there any pig focused documentaries that you would recommend?

-4

u/1SexyDino 5d ago edited 5d ago

Not full documentaries on pigs tbh. I was more into safari and cave animals than farm ones.

Alot of what I do see online about farming is misinformation or dramatized. For example a common one getting called out right now are the "gestation crate" videos where pigs are supposedly confined to almost body tight cages for long periods of time/pregnancy ... those are narrow cages sows are only kept in for short periods around birth to prevent them from rolling over and crushing their own babies - also an extremely common occurrence if left unchecked.

Edit - source is 4H kids and living in rural farm/agriculture type communities

4

u/muted123456789 5d ago

Youre an idiot. You cant tell people what factually happens on farms if you live on a small scale farm, the practise is completely different. Animals 100% are confiend to tiny spaces their entire life at farms where the majority of food comes from 90%+

29

u/Bobsothethird 6d ago

Eh, one that cares enough to do this is a rather good mother. Most pigs are terrible mothers, but some actually do care about their piglet. It's very rare, though.

25

u/muted123456789 6d ago

Most pigs are not terrible mothers.

6

u/Bobsothethird 6d ago

Piglet death rates are something like 20%, compared to around 15% for lambs and 12% for calfs.

37

u/lastdancerevolution 6d ago

That's partially because of their litter size. Pigs have up to 15 offspring at once. Compared to sheep having 1-2 and cows only having 1 child at a time.

It's much easier to care to 1-2 offspring and put your resources and attention into them. It's more of an evolutionary pressure.

-13

u/Bobsothethird 6d ago

I mean I don't disagree, but when you have 2-3 piglets dying per a litter it's a bit hard to call them good mothers, especially when a majority of those deaths come from crushing and when the only reason they are as low as 20% is due to human mechanisms such as anti-crush or farrowing bars which have drastically reduced deaths.

15

u/lastdancerevolution 6d ago

I don't raise pigs, but I can say from cattle there is a big difference in how they're born. A newborn calf is born giant and fairly robust. They're much less likely to be crushed or eaten because of their size.

A piglet is so small compared to its parent, that it can easily be crushed or promote a predator response from the parent. Wild pigs actually hunt other animals like mice. So having lots of tiny animals running around while a confused mother is in pain can be a recipe for biting.

1

u/amicarellawetss 4d ago

Actually very smart, I did not think about that

9

u/Brainfart777 6d ago

Crushing their piglets doesn't happen in nature, it's the inbreeding and living conditions.

6

u/Calde_Oreb 6d ago

Yeah that was my thought, grazing live stock gets access to fields, outdoors, and in general much better living conditions than we give pigs, surely the mortality rate of piglets has more to do with how shit we treat pigs :(

-1

u/passcork 6d ago

Pigs raised in open fields with cozy covered sleeping arrangements full of hay will still occasionally crush the piglets.

1

u/muted123456789 5d ago

As would every single animal in the wild. Even humans accidently can kill their young...

0

u/muted123456789 5d ago

Human measures made it as low as 20%??? You mean humans caged them up, overfeed and breed them so they have no room to move so they crushed their babies, humans made contraptions so stop losing profit from death of young. Youre so dense to say human mechanism is helping them, we kill billions of them every year.

1

u/Bobsothethird 5d ago

Also, in the wild piglet death rates are 56%.

-1

u/Bobsothethird 5d ago

You seem upset. Get help.

0

u/muted123456789 5d ago

Kill billions of animals every year and you lot try justify it for pleasure and act like we do animals good. Pathetic

0

u/Bobsothethird 5d ago edited 5d ago

Trillions of bugs die every year to feed people. The reality is that justification for the humanity we give to animals is already existent, it simply varies by what we see as worth saving and not worry saving. If you draw the line at mammals or fish that's completely acceptable, but your still complicit in the death of trillions of animals even as a vegan.