Talk:Pig

Too brief, low quality

One would think that this article would be entirely more comprehensive and certainly lacking in grammatical errors. So many references missing, it's not funny.

Introduction is badly formed (not a description, but rather jumps right into the question of the name of the species versus the wild boar); also, some "writers" (?) dispute the species name, not taxonomists?

71.241.120.149 09:59, 1 September 2007 (UTC) Taxonomists are classifiers of animals and plants? 69.226.14.57 (talk) 00:46, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

NPOV marker

I added the {{npov}} alert as the recent edits by Barbara Shack appear to be strongly biased by the "animal rights" bias, without a balanced view from farmers, butchers and consumers. These edits suggest that pigs are usually kept in cruel, inhumane and unhealthy environments with high death rates before slaughter. There is a purported quote without reference from the "National Hog Farmer". This should be cited other than copying several paragraphs from factoryfarming.com, in turn hosted by http://vegsource.com/. A balance should include (with references) that the meat is more tender and tasteful, and economics of farming better with relaxed, happy and healthy animals. --Scott Davis ^Talk 07:11, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Barbara Shack 13:59, 11 March 2006 (UTC)Complaints about conditions of factory farmed pigs and other animals are very common. I believe these complaints are likely to be valid. If economics of farming were better with extensively reared pigs extensive farming would be practiced by all except sadistic farmers.

While I agree that running pigs in paddocks is not practical for the volume of pork consumed in many countries, using only animal rights activist pages as references for production is biased. These often highlight practices that are neither "best practice" nor even legal, without describing the "normal" situation. Another reason to keep pigs in sheds is management of waste products. Disease management is also important, but a significant loss in transport to market is ridiculous - the farmer doesn't get paid for dead animals! The $8M/year (one truck, USA or world-wide?) is not given a context - is it 50% or 0.00001% ? --Scott Davis ^Talk 06:29, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

I guess what I'd like to see is an article built up from references from government and university sources, rather than activists. A lot of the issues I have trouble with here are not really specific to the domestic pig article anyway. They might be fine in factory farming, intensive farming, or animal cruelty articles. These issues may also apply to other animal production, such as chickens and cattle.

I've spent the afternoon on this section, and hope I've improved it. Major sentences removed are listed below.

I have removed " Arthritis is also common due to rapid growth, unnatural concrete floors and lack of exercise." as [1] suggests the largest contributor of arthritis is Erysipelas. This was the best reference I could find with Google (most hits for pig arthritis got a fad diet, or stuff about guinea pigs).

Removed "Sows can spend their lives forced into very small spaces, deprived of fresh air, the sun and straw bedding. Pigs cannot root naturally in soft ground or forage for food naturally. Denying pigs their basic needs causes severe physical and psychological stress." as it seems emotional. Better would be to describe the natural behaviour, which has nothing to do wth food, in the appropriate section.

Removed "Tail biting is one of many unnatural behaviours, which develop when they are kept in unstimulating factory farms. " has nothing to do with pigs as food.

--Scott Davis ^Talk 08:10, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for spending so much time on it - it looks much better! John Paul 29 August 2006

Seems Biased

While informative, this piece appears to have been written by animal rights activists. It has a strong PETA or SPCA "feel" to it. A more balanced presentation would be more helpful to the general reader.

Scottsicle

Please feel welcome to improve the article in any way you see fit. Barbara and I have both put a lot of effort into it (with different POVs). It would be quite disappointing (but perhaps understandable) if you decided that the best fix is to delete the three subsections of "As food". --Scott Davis ^Talk 14:05, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

I've trimmed a bunch more of the discussion of farming style and treatment. This article should be about the species, not a general discussion on humane treatment of animals produced for meat.

One sentence I removed as I don't believe it: "...and in later life to keep their teeth from killing them by entering their skulls (in the wild this would not be a problem b/c they would be worn off". The idea should be added back if there is a reliable reference.

I also removed

According to "Factory Pork Production" (an animal rights activist website)[2], the National Hog Farmer magazine advised, "Crowding Pigs Pays...", and pigs may suffer sores due to cramped conditions and lack of straw or other bedding. It claims that an industry representative wrote, “straw is very expensive and there certainly would not be a supply of straw in the country to supply all the farrowing pens in the U.S”.

as I cannot find a copy of the National Hog Farmer article online, and do not have access to the paper edition (and factoryfarming.com does not say which edition to facilitate a search).

Also removed:

Crowding pigs during transport to slaughter saves money. According to "Factory Pork Production", an industry expert wrote, “Death losses during transport are too high — amounting to more than $8 million per year. But it doesn't take a lot of imagination to figure out why we load as many hogs on a truck as we do. It's cheaper. So it becomes a moral issue. Is it right to overload a truck and save $.25 per head in the process, while the overcrowding contributes to the deaths of 80,000 hogs each year?”

due to no obvious reason for being there. --Scott Davis ^Talk 08:48, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

I was quite surprised to see the pictures of animals kept in cages on this page! I don't think it's appropriate for an encyclopedic entry on domesticated pigs, which I would have expected to have information on breeds, behaviours, domestication, beliefs and customs centered around pigs, that sort of thing (cf entry on cats or cows). The talk of pigs' intelligence seems to be another red herring. Even as a vegetarian, it seems awfully much like vegetarian propoganda to me. Cheers, John Paul 7 July 2006

Age

What is the average life expectancy of a pig assuming it died from natural causes? I think this would be good information to add.Rt66lt 22:30, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

I suspect that is what the last sentence of the first paragraph ("The average age of domestic pigs is around 10 years old.") means, but I am not sure. It certainly does not mean what it says. JimCubb 18:20, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

I have now removed that claim as it certainly didn't mean what it said, and sounds a bit high even for what it is likely to have meant. It should be referenced before being reinstated. --Scott Davis ^Talk 13:37, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Move to Intensive Pig Farming Article

Hi, I have moved much of the criticism of intensive pig farming to Intensive pig farming#Criticism of intensive piggeries. 80.189.240.94 18:53, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

I have removed the NPOV marker as I think problems have been resolved. I notice Scott has removed the gestation crate photo introduced by Barabara, however I am pleased to report this photo is still showing at intensive pig farming and factory farming. 80.189.196.18 13:16, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

The photo I left is a better picture, and has a better licence. The article didn't need two pictures of intensive pig farming - it's supposed to be about the species. --Scott Davis ^Talk 15:24, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Why two breed lists?

There are currently two breed lists: a list "Breeds within the UK" without links immediately followed by a longer "List of domestic pig breeds" with (mostly red) links to breed articles. Is there a reason to keep the first list? --Scott Davis ^Talk 13:37, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

There appeared to be no reason for the second UK list, since each breed was repeated under the "List of domestic pig breeds." I have removed the UK list and reformatted the section. --Chobbs138 18:23, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

I think that the 'List of domestic pig breeds' can be moved to a separate page. The list seems out of place in the article. The WP article on Cattle has already done this with the List of breeds of cattle. If there are objections, the change can be reverted. -- Hampshire2004 (talk) 00:00, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Needs Attention

• Taxonomy is wrong (genus, taxon) should be Sus domestica as per ICZN decision IIRC.

* I tried looking this up at the ICZN web site [3] which sent me to the Zoo bank [4]. However, at their site I found all possible spellings and no reference to any decision. Now I'm just a clueless physicist trying to find the right way to write "pig" for my thesis, so maybe someone else is better suited to find the reference to this decision. --Alf 17:40, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Aha! Opinion 2027 does not refer to pigs! It refers to those animals where the domestic form was described first (as a species, maybe including the wild form, maybe not) and the wild one was separately described later. These, and only these, MUST have the domestic form as a separate species (dogs, cats, cattle, you name it). But it would possibly be better to treat the porker at species level too - for one thing, to be consistent with the others, and for another thing, a razorback hog (which is a porker returning to a "wild" state) and a wild boar are different enough (the razorback has the blunt skull and different behavior of the domestic pig). They can produce fertile offspring of course, but this is no sure-fire criterion, and in any case it's mainly cosmetic anyway. So there is no hard-and-fast rule, actually; the issue could be discussed in the article. Dysmorodrepanis 18:10, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

So since this opinion doesn't apply to pigs then the name should be Sus scrofa domestica and not Sus domestica? --Alf 18:27, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

* While we're at it I have a couple of add-on questions: domestica or domesticus? I believe it's female and male ending in latin when making a property into an adjective. So has anyone decided on whether pigs are female or not? Some of them seem fairly butch to me :) --Alf 17:44, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

domestica it is... fairly straightforward, this one... the name means literally "domesticated sow". (It would have been "Porcus domesticus" if Linne would have chosen the Latin term for male pigs)

* Thirdly, is it bad of me to split up your comment like this. Should I've replied at the end instead? I can fell my wiki-karma draining away already. --Alf 17:47, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

I can restore that, m'man... here, a handy karma point: o <- KARMA! No, make that two: oo Dysmorodrepanis 18:10, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

• lists should be split from article as with other animal breeds; some famous or mainstay breeds around the globe should be briefly mentioned in section (traditional/landrace breeds vs high-intensive farming stock).

• layout: table -> left?

• Intro contains much information which does not belong here. Wild Boar subspecies are nice (because not only the European one has contributed to the ole porker - I think cristatus and/or vittatus too. At least.) but they should be part of a discussion on how the domestic pig was bred.

• Conservation status is "Domesticated". rm IUCN link; it is not appropriate for this animal. Dysmorodrepanis 02:24, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

I removed the circular link to gammon. Barnaby the Scrivener (talk) 15:33, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

domectic pig, pig ( genus sus), wild boar, feral pig.

this articles are having confusion. I think that someone or a wikiproyect must clarify. This one is encyclopedia. It must not to be wrong. genus sus is not only pig. a wild boar is not a domestic pig o a feral pig a feral or wild pig is a domestic pig specimen. Today they are put in "wild boar" article.

Anselmocisneros 12:22, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Domesticated 2500 years ago?

That does not seem right at all. That would actually make it one of the last animals to be domesticated. The Livestock article says 7000 BC which makes a lot more sense.

• • I have a reliable source for 7000 BC. I'm changing and sourcing.--Doug.^{(talk • contribs)} 18:06, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

WP Agriculture?

I found categories for both Livestock and Domesticated Animals, but projects only for Cats, dogs and Dog Breeds, Horse Breeds. It seems there ought to be a project covering livestock and other agricultural topics, as quite a few of the sites need clean up. Therefore, I have proposed a Project "Agriculture". If there is any interest in this or an alternative project "Livestock", or if someone knows of something already out there, please comment at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Council/Proposals#Agriculture.--Doug. 18:44, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Can we pick a Verification Template!

This article uses {{refimprove}}, {{citations missing}}, and inline {{fact}} tags in addition to clean up and copy editing templates. I have to scroll down just to see the first line of the article. We need to leave the project/cleanup tag and pick one other way to tag this article if we want to and then work on it.--Doug.^{(talk • contribs)} 18:35, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

It seemed redundant to have both refimprove and citations notices. Removed refimprove. --Chobbs138 18:26, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Concur, though I'm not sure that is the more commonly used of the two. It also seems redundant to have both a general article tag and inline {{Fact}} tags, unless someone is challenging specific text and intends to delete it, even then, it seems better in such a case to either go with the general article tag or remove the offending text to the talk page per Verifiability, or if it's really bad, just delete it. BTW, I think you killed my link by changing the reference format, I fixed it. Can you refer me to Manual of Style entry on BC vs BCE, I was wondering about that issue, and I see you changed my BCE entry?--Doug.^{(talk • contribs)} 19:46, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

On a similar matter, I'm removing the copyedit template, as that is part of cleanup and this needs general cleanup.--Doug.^{(talk • contribs)} 22:16, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Rare Breeds

I like the idea of a rare breeds section, but why do we only have one listed, while Tamworths, GOSs, etc. are in the regular list?--Doug.^{(talk • contribs)} 22:15, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Global Pig Stocks

The Global Pig Stocks table is 1) out of date (there is 2006 data available), 2) incorrect (the data doesn't match the source) and 3) incorrectly sourced, the correct source is here, the other one is an archive that only runs to 2004. I noticed when someone tried to about double Denmark's numbers. The new Denmark figure was way off so I reverted but the current data is not correct even for 2005. I'll try to fix if I get a moment but for now, I'll just mark it up as a "to do" item for this page.--Doug.^{(talk • contribs)} 04:48, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

I updated with 2007 data from http://faostat.fao.org/site/573/default.aspx JanSöderback (talk) 17:38, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

WikiProject Food and drink Tagging

This article talk page was automatically added with {{WikiProject Food and drink}} banner as it falls under Category:Food or one of its subcategories. If you find this addition an error, Kindly undo the changes and update the inappropriate categories if needed. The bot was instructed to tagg these articles upon consenus from WikiProject Food and drink. You can find the related request for tagging here . Maximum and careful attention was done to avoid any wrongly tagging any categories , but mistakes may happen... If you have concerns , please inform on the project talk page -- TinucherianBot (talk) 20:47, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Arabian Wikipedia

There used to exist an Arabian language version of this one. What happened? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lalli (talk • contribs) 19:11, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Chicken fodder

Perhaps a section "domestic pig fodder" can be added ? Pigs can eg be fed with grass, as mentioned at fodder KVDP (talk) 10:48, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Content of article, repetition of other articles

User:Agong1 made the following edit to the article: [5], with the summary "Put the domestic pig in context and shifted sections to other pages. Hope you are happy".

I reverted ([6]) that edit with the following summary: "Revert: better before. New material little or no improvement, much material missing. Too much change in one go: please discuss first [...]".

The following comment was then posted on my user page (I presume that User:117.201.48.170 is the same person as User:Agong1, whom I hope may be forgiven for forgetting to log in):

I don't think putting all that stuff about pig farming is necessary in an article about the domestic pig. Originally the article redirected from pig farming to domestic pig. Theya re entirely different. I know, I keep pigs. There is an article on pig farming already. Why fill up the 'domestic pig' page with irrelevant stuff about farming. The current articles on pigs are:

Pig, Pigs - redirects to pig, Domestic pig, Pig farming, Intensive pig farming, hog, List of domestic pig breeds etc. With so many articles we can afford to be more selective.

We should keep this article about domestic pigs only and leave other sections for other articles. Now you have reverted it, this article continues to be duplicating, confusing and superfluous. Can you please help WP with all the pig articles and put everything in its right context - and in the right place? Thanks.

117.201.48.170 (talk) 09:58, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

I reverted the edit for several reasons:

• The changes were very large, with large sections of text moved and others deleted. Such multiple changes done at once make it very difficult to see whether text moved within the article has been changed.
• The edit summary did not make clear any reasons for the changes, simply saying "shifted sections to other pages". Which sections? Which other pages? Why?
• Those sections which had been edited or replaced did not seem to me to be much improved, if at all.
• Some material should surely not be omitted altogether, such as the whole of the food, farming and "see also" sections.

I think the argument is that there is material in Domestic pig which is repeated elsewhere. However, this is the lead article for a large subject, and it should therefore summarise and link the various more specialised articles. We do need (succinct) summaries of those topics.

Looking at the article, yes, it could be improved: it is rather confused and I notice that there are some "main article" links missing; we also don't need nearly so many pig terms here (though we do need some). However, I can't see a justification for many of the changes. Could we have a discussion and consensus please on what changes are needed, and if we think changes are needed, then do them in stages so we can see what's going on? Richard New Forest (talk) 21:53, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

What is this "lead article" business? Is that why Cattle and Deer are so bloated with tangents as to be unreadable? I agree with 117.201.48.170 that summaries of other, related articles do not belong in this article. Else we might as well include a summary of this article in every other, related article; that way, readers of those articles won't have to bother ever reading this one. I think the whole concept of a "lead article" is both time-wasting and an insult to the reader. 69.3.72.9 (talk) 16:51, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Re "lead article", what seems to be wanted is a featured topic, with related articles gathered together in some kind of navigation box, and as little overlap as possible among them. 69.3.72.9 (talk) 16:56, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Surely Pig is top of the hierarchy of articles about the pig? See below, Trev M  ~  18:06, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

That article is not where I would start. The lead says it is about the genus Sus, but almost all the content is about domestic pigs. I would move that article to Sus (genus). Here's a draft navigation box: Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Template:Pigs. 69.3.72.9 (talk) 20:02, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Merger proposal

User:117.201.52.155 has posted a merger proposal template on this article, suggesting merging Domestic pig and Pig (I have copied this template to the other article as is usual in this situation). No rationale was provided for the proposal – perhaps the proposer would like to provide one here. (As I am not the proposer, I have given my response separately below.) Richard New Forest (talk) 10:10, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose – The two articles have different subjects: Domestic pig covers, um, domestic pigs, while Pig covers pigs generally, with a summary of domestic pigs, but also covering the wild ancestor of domestic pigs (wild boar) and the other wild species of pig. Richard New Forest (talk) 10:10, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose As above; Pig is the summary/parent article for everything and then you have Domestic pig, Wild boar, etc. There are plenty of sources which make this an unquestionably notable topic on its own. VernoWhitney (talk) 12:33, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

• Support Think about what is a domestic pig? Is it not just a pig?, a sub species of.. well pigs. Domestic means 'of or relating to the family or household' and that is different from considering all the aspects of pigs including farming, breeds etc. Are we going to put articles about 'domestic' monkeys or snakes, trout or tigers? after all they are all kept domestically? Just read the comments above and it is clear the article was a bit of a mess to start with. it seemed to me the word 'domestic' was the problem so I tried to resolve the duplicity with the many other articles within Wiki and separated sections accordingly. Could we not, having so much choice, put the encyclopedic content into proper context and in its relevant sections? What do you think? Agong1 11:11, 7 September 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Agong1 (talk • contribs)

Domestic pig is not "a subspecies of pigs", but of one species of pig, Sus scrofa. "Domestic" does not necessarily mean "relating to the household" or "kept domestically"; in this case (and for most other animals) it means "domesticated", which does include farming, breeds etc.

There is a heirarchy of articles. First, pigs generally, including domestic pigs, their wild ancestor the wild boar, and the various other species of wild pigs. Then there are articles for each of those various pig species, including domestic pig, and then there are derivative articles of this, including pig farming etc. This is exactly the way it is done for various other domestic animals. For example, there is Bovini (cattle species generally), Bison, Gaur, Yak etc, Cattle, and Beef cattle, Dairy cattle, Beef etc. Then there is Ovis (sheep species generally), various sheep species articles including Domestic sheep, and Domestic sheep predation, List of sheep breeds etc. Likewise for dogs, chickens, cats, horses, goats and everything else I can think of. This is a logical and perfectly acceptable arrangement, and I can't really see what's wrong with it. (Incidentally, I think you meant "duplication", not "duplicity"...)

Finally, can you clarify whether you are the proposer of this merger? If so, please place a rationale at the top of this section and remove your "support" entry: you only get one voice in this debate (you could do this by simply placing a strike-through code around the "support" (<s>...</s>). Also please respond to the message about this issue that I left you a couple of days ago on your talk page. Richard New Forest (talk) 21:10, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose. Seems like more clear steering for those seeking, placing or editing content might be useful. I don't see

• Pig
• Domestic pig
• Pig farming (etc)

in any way as hierarchical in importance, simpy that the first point of call of one looking for reference on pigs would be Pig. Get that banner off the articles this week, and instead, above the link to the disambiguation of all the allegorical uses, put a highly visible, clearly understandable directory to the other important pages and what aspects of the pig they cover. Clearly, the Pig article is going to contain most science, and Pig farming the most information on commercial rearing. Domestic pig would seem to be the place describing its association with humans, through history, and associations that are probably not what farmers are thinking about but what those keeping just one or two pigs might be. Hope this helps. Best, Trev M  ~  00:24, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

BTW – this article gets 750 hits/day, Pig gets 3k, disambiguation gets about 60 and Pig farming about 10. TM 01:53, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

I didn't mean heirarchical in importance, but in organisation – only that detailed topics relating to domestic pigs ought to be summarised in Domestic pig.

I do like your idea about a directory. Do you mean a template to go in all pig articles? Richard New Forest (talk) 19:13, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps "differentiation" is a more appropriate term than heirarchy, if we're discussing organisation. Clearly, in terms of hierarchy of hits (see above) Pig "wins", but then these visitors need to be directed to the appropriate pages. Clearly, most casual visitors don't make it to the bottom of the page to follow the "See also"s. I have strong doubts that the hit numbers as shown above accurately reflect the interests of those coming to the site.

So, wrt the format the "directory" would take, I'll go check out what WP has available. Clearly it needs to go at the top, in the position of the disambiguation template, visible, but (as for my preferences) free of unnecessary graphics and colours and other fuss (like the merge template). The disambiguation template would work apart from its semantic inappropriateness and that it strings entries in one line, whereas one compact line per page allowing an explanatory phrase would be more suited to this use.... Trev M  ~  19:48, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose and move Pig to Sus (genus) and move the disambiguation page to Pig. 69.3.72.9 (talk) 20:04, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Pig farming terminology weighs very heavy on the article

Just came by to have a look what was going on.

I have very little interest in pigs outside of WP, one way or the other. From an encyclopedic angle, I do think some interesting RS cited stuff that was added has been removed simply because it came as too heavy a load, and not quite from the angle some of the contributors would have liked, from a relatively inexperienced editor. Rather than RV most of it, it could have been used more sympathetically.

And as the for the Pig farming terminology section, aside from being a list where the rest of the page is prose, it virtually splits the page in two. I've moved most of the list to ~Farming with a link. Trev M  ~  23:56, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm for creating a new sub-article. The relevant example here is Domestic sheep and the Glossary of sheep husbandry. I think "Pig farming terminology" is a bit awkward, so "Glossary of porcine terminology" or something equally encyclopedic would be good. Steven Walling 04:28, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Terminology sub article really needs to be discussed at Talk:Pig farming: I didn't even realise that page existed when I came here. It looks less inappropriate on that page. Trev M  ~  10:50, 9 September 2010 (UTC)