Photograph by L.G. Patterson
Before you can bring home the breakfast bacon, Mr. Pig and Mrs. Pig have to get together and make piglets. Or not. Turns out, in the modern world of pig farming, the male and female have very little, if any, contact. Instead, it's all about machines that collect, um, essence of swine, and other machines that pass it along to the sows. And why should you care, haute urban magazine reader? We'll let Tim Safranski, associate professor at the University of Missouri and the organizer of this month's Midwest Boar Stud Managers Conference, explain.
HOW LONG HAVE THESE BOAR STUD FACILITIES BEEN USED? The first commercial studs were put in the U.S. in the 1970s. It was another 20 years before the industry really began to embrace artificial insemination.
DO THESE BOARS HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO SOCIALIZE? The boars can see other boars, but if you put two mature boars together, they will fight to the death.
HOW BIG DO THEY GET? Most of these stud boars don't get to be more than 2½ years old, so they get to be 600 or 700 pounds.
ARE PIGS AS SMART AS PEOPLE SAY? I don't know how to judge the intelligence of a pig, but I don't deem them to be stupid.
DO THE BOARS AND SOWS EVER CROSS PATHS? We still use males for detection of estrus. A sow comes into heat once every 21 days. When the sow smells the boar, she stands so firmly you could sit on her back. To try to detect that without a boar, we have varying degrees of efficiency.
DO YOU THINK THE SOWS AND BOARS EVER GET LONELY FOR REAL COMPANIONSHIP? If everybody's doing their jobs right, the pigs don't necessarily know that they're not experiencing the real thing. The sow needs to believe that she is experiencing a natural mating for this to work. It's the same sort of experience for the boar.
HOW DID YOU GET INVOLVED WITH THIS INDUSTRY? My mother grew up on a pig farm in Iowa, and I always liked them. I wanted to work with pigs, so that's what I decided to study.
HAVE YOU EVER SEEN CHARLOTTE'S WEB? I read the book when I was in grade school.
WHAT DID YOU THINK OF THAT AMAZING PIG, WILBUR? I don't know that it necessarily affected me. I did see Babe. I wasn't all that enamored of it. The opening scene was not at all an accurate reflection of pork production.
