A Happy Family has a Siesta

Whatever prejudice you have about pigs, here you can learn that it isn't true. These pigs are allowed to live together as a family—boar, sows, yearlings and piglets—and roam freely in a large forest area. You can see how content they are.

If not stressed pigs have a rich social and family life. The piglets are born and brought up in the forest. The whole herd cares for the piglets, even the boar. They practice social body care—not only the sows clean their piglets, but the piglets clean the older pigs as well. If left enough room they don't shit where they sleep and hence they don't stink. And interestingly their tails are straight if they are not nervous or alarmed.

This herd feeds on chestnuts and acorns and occasionally they get some stale bread. The meat they provide tastes magnitudes better than anything you can buy in the supermarket and even their fat is healthful due to special fatty acids only produced by animals living in the wild.

Please read the very interesting essays by Augustin Thyssen about pigs in the forest and his pig tales (and tails).

More panoramas from the region:

• Peacocks in the afternoon (on WWP)

• Forest on the border (on WWP)

• on 360cities

• on my page

Europe / France

Lat: 44° 17' 1.65" N
Long: 4° 5' 5.52" E

Elevation: 381

→ maps.google.com [EXT]

Precision is: High. Pinpoints the exact spot.

Canon EOS 5DII, Zenitar 16mm, PTGui Pro, Photoshop