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:
“Twelve voices were shouting in anger, and they were all alike. No question, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”
—George Orwell (1903–1950)
“The measure discriminates definitely against products which make up what has been universally considered a program of safe farming. The bill upholds as ideals of American farming the men who grow cotton, corn, rice, swine, tobacco, or wheat and nothing else. These are to be given special favors at the expense of the farmer who has toiled for years to build up a constructive farming enterprise to include a variety of crops and livestock.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)