Pig Farming - Pig Farming Terminology

Pig Farming Terminology

Pigs are extensively farmed, and therefore the terminology is well developed:

  • Pig, hog or swine, the species as a whole, or any member of it. The singular of "swine" is the same as the plural.
  • Shoat, piglet or (where the species is called "hog") pig, unweaned young pig, or any immature pig.
  • Sucker, a pig between birth and weaning.
  • Runt, an unusually small and weak piglet, often one in a litter.
  • Boar or hog, male pig of breeding age.
  • Barrow, male pig castrated before puberty.
  • Stag, male pig castrated later in life, (that is, an older boar after castration).
  • Gilt, young female not yet mated, or not yet farrowed, or after only one litter (depending on local usage).
  • Sow, breeding female, or female after first or second litter.

Read more about this topic:  Pig Farming

Famous quotes containing the words pig and/or farming:

    Edible. Good to eat and wholesome to digest, as a worm to a toad, a toad to a snake, a snake to a pig, a pig to a man, and a man to a worm.
    Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914)

    With the farming of a verse
    Make a vineyard of the curse,
    —W.H. (Wystan Hugh)