In their current implementation, yeah, they’re pretty bad.
There is a need for something like it, though. A sow will absolutely lay down on her piglets and suffocate them.
There is a need for something like it, though. A sow will absolutely lay down on her piglets and suffocate them.
This makes me really curious because that behavior seems very maladaptive for a species. That leads me to wonder if something else, ie. the environment or domestication, is leading to this behavior rather than pigs being really, really prone to wiping out their own species. Does anyone know why they do this in a farm environment?
There are a lot of environmental factors, like snuggling for warmth being unsafe.
But by and large... Pigs give birth in numbers. They can afford for half to die, and still proliferate. They don't need to be 'good parents'.
They reproduce very quickly - evolution is a numbers game, and yield isn’t part of the equation.
Some of the loss likely is due to keeping them penned up, however there are also losses for not keeping them penned up and letting baby pigs run among a herd of many adult pigs, some of which will attempt to kill piglets, especially females who have not had piglets yet. Pigs can be absolute viscous as hell and will readily eat other living animals if they think they can get away with it, including other pigs, and some mother pigs have been known to cannibalize their young even under ideal situations. Pig farmers have themselves been killed by pigs from passing out or getting knocked out in pig pens and the pigs seeing them as a free meal not to be wasted.