Wallowing Pigs…
No, this isn’t a post on the porcine equivalent of the Jonestown massacre. I just thought that all of the seafood posts lately have been so healthy, and I was concerned that bonafide pork lovers, like commenter “Lee” from Bacolod, might be having pork withdrawal syndrome, so I decided to skip a few posts and do this one on a bunch of pigs that we walked into in the “backwoods” of Malapascua island. It was mid-morning and a bit warm, but under a grove of coconut trees, in the shade and on dark sand, about 8 pigs were napping and resting in their shallow and self made sand wells…
It seems that pigs naturally like to wallow in mud. They apparently are unable to cool themselves off by panting or sweating (a lot), so the water cools off their bodies, the mud wards off insects and their bites, and more importantly, acts as a sort of sunblock for their highly sensitive skin. So the description “sweating like a pig” is actually an oxymoron as pigs don’t really sweat all that much. But on Malapascua, these pigs weren’t in mud baths. Instead, they picked shaded sandy areas and they dug out little wells in the sand to cool off instead. Frankly, they looked really happy while snoozing away. The perfect size for a nice lechon, if you ask me.
I read somewhere that pigs are really quite intelligent, but I still don’t think I would have one as a pet. They can get rather aggressive and despite their intelligence, if left out in the wild, they can turn nasty. These guys were pretty docile, however and I was able to approach them to take several photos. It’s really kind of odd, but it seems that all of them smile in their sleep… Up next, a great pork dish, of course!
They are happy lounging in their natural habitat rather than in a man-made pen! I heard it before for a filthy person “was raised in a pig-pen.”
May 6th, 2008Hahaha… i love your pictures, the pigs look so content! Im a big pig lover, but not as lechon, hahaha…
May 6th, 2008ang cute! ahahaha natuwa ako. :)
May 6th, 2008i remember the expression: fat lazy pig!
May 6th, 2008They are too cute to eat :)
May 6th, 2008pigs are so cute :)
May 6th, 2008lechon time marketman, get fire going with all those dried up coconut husk around the pig pen, they make a great charcoal for making lechon. actually that’s the best it’s better than “uling”.
May 6th, 2008Hey Marketman,
That reminds me you haven’t done any lechon recipe. I remember requesting for it many, many moons ago. He he whenever you can please, I’m dying to try my Big Johns Grill that I’ve purchase two years ago. The motorized spit can hold up to 120 lbs of an animal. Check it out www.bigjohngrills.com
May 6th, 2008jdawgg, I actually witnessed a lechon from live baby pig to the entire cleaning process, stuffing, cooking, etc. But I am saving it for a book, if I ever finally get my act together…. :)
May 6th, 2008They are so cute!!! Pigs are perfect :) Can’t wait for the next post ;)
May 6th, 2008Cute nga! Makes me sad to think they’re ending up as lechon or adobo or sinigang! :(
May 6th, 2008First time I’ve seen pigs wallowing in sand. Makes for a cleaner looking pig.
May 6th, 2008aaawww adorable! ;)
May 6th, 2008Seeing the pigs relaxing made me smile =) although I couldn’t help imagine a couple of them with an apple each in their mouths and slowly roasting over a coal pit…hehehe…yummy lechon *drooling*
May 6th, 2008I believe there’s a breed of pig — called the pot-bellied pig — that some people actually keep as pets.
Here’s some information on them:
http://exoticpets.about.com/cs/potbelliedpigs/a/pbpexpect.htm
And some photos:
http://exoticpets.about.com/cs/photogalleries/l/blphpigs2.htm
P.S. I like Hammie and Yolanda (in the previous page) :-)
And Bailey and Miss Holly here are sooo cute!
http://exoticpets.about.com/cs/photogalleries/l/blphpigs3.htm
Oh and have you forgotten Babe?
Oink!
May 6th, 2008now these are ultimate stress-free pigs!!! those smiles just tell of the awareness that they’re not trotting down a slaughterhouse plank anytime in their future –at all. the thought of knowing they’ll forever be pigs and not pork…. now if only a coconut happened to fall on the head of one of them, get a fire started mm….
May 6th, 2008Your best post yet! :-)
May 6th, 2008for the nth time..that picture of a pig smiling is so cute….hahhahahh!!!!
May 6th, 2008Hi MM,
The post gave me a shock! I had just come from other sites talking about the deaths in a Myanmar cyclone, 9 were wiped away by an errant wave in South Korea and thousands sick with foot, hand and mouth disease in China. I opened your site for a “break” so to speak and saw the prone piglets. I thought they were all dead waiting in their shallow graves!
I’m just so happy to see them alive and apprently sleeping in the cooler sands.
Hay!
May 6th, 2008they shine! hahaha. cute.
May 6th, 2008Pigs have no sweat glands. The only to cool them is through their snout. Hot summer months would sometimes cause off feeding, lower weight gain, eventually seasonal infertility so we have higher pork prices during Christmas season.
May 6th, 2008I love anything with pig designs, that’s about it…never liked getting near a live one, though…But I’m sure looking forward to your pork dish…cute pics of pigs!
May 6th, 2008Have you had naturally raised pigs? The ones that eat grass, forage on vegetables? Not given commercial feeds. They taste great.
May 6th, 2008dogs look up to humans;
May 6th, 2008cats look down on humans;
PIGS LOOK AT HUMANS AS EQUALS!
The big-bellied one on the foreground of the first picture is the cutest!!! But their cute factor certainly won’t do anything to prevent me from eating pork. Adobo…hmmm…
May 6th, 2008I just finished my first reading of the Perfumes the Guide of Luca Turin (Emperor of Scent) and Tania Sanchez which opened the chapter on Feminine Fragrance with: “The question that women casually shopping for perfume ask more than any other is this: “What scent drives men wild?” After years of intense research, we know the definitive answer. It is bacon.”
May 6th, 2008your pics about the pigs reminds me those days when i was still a young boy when we had a piggery in our backyard . . taking care of pigs is really enjoyable . .i really miss those moments
May 6th, 2008They ARE really cute, but tasty overrules cute any day in my book… Fire up the pit!
May 6th, 2008Oh my God! Thank God they’re alive! I thought they were some dead pigs at first, like they died of some epidemics or something hehehe…
May 7th, 2008Apicio- there is a Taco Bell commercial where two girls at a bar hide tacos containing bacon in their purses as a way of attracting men. A couple of guys come up to them wanting to know what the “alluring fragrance” is. LOL.
I think George Clooney has a pot bellied pig as a pet.
May 7th, 2008yeah, george clooney has a pot bellied pig.
May 7th, 2008Hey Marketman,
If you ever do the book thing. Please make sure to reserve me one + count me in to donate a little something to your charity. Peace
May 7th, 2008oh boy they love to get down and dirty!
May 7th, 2008I have read a lot as well that pigs are really intelligent. And thus actually get heartbreakingly depressed when subjected to terrible conditions in farms where they’re caged and can’t move around.
And oh how adorable they look in the photos …
May 7th, 2008