Another way of looking at it

When a pig’s life is not totally mechanised to meet the ends of mass production, he or she lives in close-knit groups where the main female has the say. Male pigs usually live as loners after their puberty. When they have proved themselves to their adversaries they gain access to females. The females however, are [...]

X15 is alive – a industrialised procedure

X15 is a male piglet. His existence began on 2.3.09 as his mother was artificially inseminated. In pig breeding farms sows are used as reproductive machines. Their natural cycles are controlled on mass by hormone injection which ensure the timing of their fertility and which are used as little as 4 to 7 days after her [...]

Another month until the birth

Today it is more or less exactly a month until X11 and X15 are due to be born. It is not possible to predict the exact day, but it will be at the end of June. Initially, both piglets will be kept in a breeding unit, which meets Austrian regulations and standards. Then, as soon [...]

Making Pigs Pregnant

Around four months before piglets are to be born, a sow is made pregnant. What a boar used to do is done today by a pig breeder himself. Artificial insemination is done by using sperm from a special breeding unit. This means that the mother of X11 and X15, the two pigs, whose lives we will be [...]

The Birth

Pig-Vision will be following the life of a pig in a typical intensive pig farm. This will, of course, include the birth; our camera team will be there to film as life begins for a small group of pigs. What is the birth like? And how does a sow actually become pregnant? To find out [...]