Pigs; They’re Just Like Us
Pigs resemble human beings more than most of us think. Although they are known as being dirty, for instance, the fact of the matter is that pigs take quite good care of themselves.
Another similarity between the two species is that pigs in the wild only search for food all day long because they have to, not because they want to.
Nomadic human tribes do the same thing, and our ancestors did so as well – before we were able to produce food on a regular basis, we searched for food all day long, and ate whenever we could. Later, when agriculture developed and we had settled in, we changed our eating pattern.
Pigs seemingly do the same. Research has shown that pigs raised in conventional indoor pens prefer three meals a day than little meals throughout the day.
Eva Persson, the lead author of the report on the research explained: “he natural feeding behaviour of pigs is searching for feed by rooting activities throughout the day; self-feeding pigs randomly space their activities and generally consume between ten and twelve meals in an average day. By replicating this pattern in conventional indoor kept pigs, we had hoped they would fare better than those fed the traditional three meals.”
Contrary to expectations, however, it were the pigs that received three bigger meals a day that were most happy, and putting on most weight.
Person explained in her report that “increased daily feeding occasions among group-housed pigs resulted in a poorer daily weight gain and an increased number of stomach problems. It will be of great interest to those in the farming and animal welfare fields that this study does not support increased daily feeding occasions in fattening pigs.”
One of the main reasons for the difference, researchers argue, is that competition goes up when the pigs receive little meals nine times a day. Since there is so little food to divide between the pigs every time, they have to fight for it (albeit not literally; it’s more pushing, running, threatening, etc.). This causes the weak to eat less, and all pigs to experience more stress.
