A PiG'S Life
by Ingo Niermann
When we get close to the fence, a girl tells us: "You're not allowed
to
stroke the pony."
"What about the donkey and the horse?"
"They're mine."
"Aren't they there for everybody?"
The girl's mother is appalled: "Can’t you let her have her dreams."
The girl says: "All animals belong to somebody."
"What about the birds and the worms?" we ask.
"They belong to God."
"God isn't a person."
"Of course God is a person."
We can’t show the children the animals that are fattened up in factory farms. But in picture-books, you can still see farms where various animals wander around freely, with only ever two or three of each type. Children's farms are modelled on this world – like in the picture-books, the animals are disproportionately large compared to the buildings. This is where children first see and touch a pig, or a goat. And in Berlin, when the children cross the little Panke stream on their way to the "Pinke-Panke" children's farm, some of them ask "Is that the sea?"
The difference between a children's farm and a playground is that not only the children, but their toys are also alive. Because the animals can't fully express themselves and don't have one particular person looking after them, everybody who visits the children's farm can take on responsibility for them. The animals becomes important alongside the parents’ thoughts of themselves and their children.
In the playground, parents don't mind letting their children clamber up onto enormous climbing frames. But on the children's farm, they stand right next to their children, to protect them from the animals and the animals from their children. If a child starts blowing soap bubbles, that pollutes the animal feed and the hay, and it's bad for the animals; the sand in the playground is dirty anyway.
It's good that the children's farm is full of nooks and crannies. The paths between the small enclosures are so narrow that people have to try to squeeze past one another. Piles of manure, stables and trees mean you can't ever see very far. So the children don't see what's being claimed by some other child at a different place, and the parents and the people who work there can't see all the places someone might be up to no good.
The volunteers are themselves still children. In return for clearing out the stables, they're allowed to stroke maybe a horse, and they're given some lunch. But usually it's already enough for them just to be allowed on the other side of the fence, with the animals.
The bigger animals, which are the most interesting, are large enough for many hands to stroke them at the same time, but they rarely stand with their sides along the fence. More often, they stand up straight and strain their mouths through the fence, looking for food. There, at the front, near head and mouth, a single little hand can get irritating. Then, when more children lean over the fence to reach towards an animal, it gets annoyed very easily.
More than the other animals, Susi the pig panics. Like all pigs, she can't see very well; on top of that her eyes are obscured by thick bristles. Her perceptions are dominated by the smell of a combination of sweat, cream and washing products. She hardly recoils from being touched; she wouldn't know where to. She doesn't squeal, just grunts. But in that grunting there's a despairing groan, a malice incapable of reacting. The pig can't even bite, because people reach in from above, where her own soft snout is in the way of her teeth.
One of the mums, who still bears clear traces of many years of drug abuse – the slow-motion gesticulation, the drawn-out features, the fixed gaze, the drooping mouth and blue-tinged, pasty skin – again and again says that she is from a farm. And each time she says this, she encourages her three and four-year-old children: "Go on, go over to the pigs, stroke the pig!"
Susi sounds more and more annoyed – she can't get away. She hasn't got the strength to escape. She's got advanced arthritis, and getting up is painful, especially on her hind legs. She hardly ever manages to walk even a couple of steps with her stiff knees.
"Why can't Susi walk normally?"
"Her knees hurt. She's too heavy."
"Has she been eating too much?"
"No, pigs are always as round as her. But her bones are too weak. Look
at how thin her legs are."
"Why are her legs so thin?"
"People want to eat a lot of meat, but they don't have any use for the
bones. So they breed pigs with as thin bones as they can."
"Susi looks sad. Her legs hurt."
"Susi is already twelve years old. Normally pigs don't get that old. They're
slaughtered before their legs start to hurt."
"Is that why her skin's so dark and her bristles are so hard and shabby?"
"No. Look at how big and long her snout is."
"Is she a wild boar?"
"No. Can you see how her teeth aren't long and sharp?"
"What kind of pig is she then?"
"No kind in particular. She's a mongrel, just as a dog can be a mongrel."
"What about that other pig over there?"
"That's Piggi. Piggi is Susi's sister."
"But Piggi is pink; her bristles are lighter and thinner."
"Like you and your sister. You've got blond hair, and your sister's got
brown hair."
The buildings on the children's farm are timbered. This connects it to the idea of a proper, i.e. pre-industrial, farm. But some of the animals that lived on those farms looked completely different then. The German Pasture Pig, for example, had a black and white saddle, and its thick bristles stood erect on its back like a comb. It was quite short, had long legs, and with its instinct for rooting and its long snout it was perfect for going through potato and cereal fields after the harvest. But it wasn't suitable for intensive rearing in an enclosed space. So first a fat pig was cultivated, and then, as a consequence of increasing demand for as many lean cuts as possible, the modern lean pig. They became ready to slaughter in 175 days instead of five years, and two extra ribs were added to their length.
The German Pasture Pig was classified 'extinct' in 1975. In 1980, after a genetic gap of only a few years, Professor Werner Plarre of the Free University in Berlin began to try to recreate it at the Museum Farm in Düppel. This wasn't just an attempt to try to cross different breeds of modern domesticated pigs until the former characteristics re-appeared, but also involved ancestors of the Pasture Pig which are still alive. The proportions of different species in the recreated German Pasture Pig are: 40 per cent Magalitsa, 33 per cent wild boar, 20 per cent Husum Red Pied and 7 per cent German Landrace. In 1996 the result, known as the “Düppel Pasture Pig”, was registered in the German Database for Animal Gene Resources.
Susi and Piggi
are the rejects from Plarre's attempts to breed the pig. In Piggi's case,
the proportion of domestic pig was too large; Susi was the runt of the litter.
She was the smallest and weakest of nine piglets. Two of them were considered
suitable for further cross-breeding; seven were distributed to children's
farms or slaughtered.
Although at the beginning nobody thought she would survive, Susi developed
wonderfully, became stronger and more agile than Piggi, until she was broken
down by the arthritis and a cold she had for months. Now Susi finds it difficult
even to walk around her enclosure, which is only a hundred metres square,
to hunt out the fruit and vegetables that are thrown over the fence. Last
summer she couldn't even stand up on her own in the mornings; someone had
to lift her belly to help her up.
Summer is the most strenuous season for pigs, because they can't sweat. At the same time, because of their round, compact shape, they have a relatively small body surface area, and a layer of fat under the skin extends over almost the whole body. It’s easy for pigs to get heat stress. Their heartbeat goes up and they breathe more rapidly as they become exhausted.
During the summer, Susi lay in the sand without moving for hours on end. When she sometimes got up on her front legs, she had to breathe heavily for a long time afterwards. She was going to be put to sleep, but when they reluctantly decided to call the vet he'd gone on holiday; by the time he came back Susi was already much better. The next time she can't get up in the mornings, she's going to die.In / Kid's Wear, Nr. 16, Frühling / Sommer 2003, S. 68-70