Just your
average ordinary pig.
Until you take another look.
They can fit in the
palm of your hand,
or they can be carried
away in a bulldozer.
We eat them by the millions,
but millions more are born
each year.
They can be medical miracles.
Or mega monsters.
Pigs are curious, strong,
and most of all, smart.
Yes, smart.
In fact they're a lot like us.
We'll get an inside look
at what makes them tick,
makes them successful, and
makes them an animal genius.
Meet Priscilla Valentine,
the leader
of Valentine's Performing Pigs.
Good Morning kids.
Everyone should take a
new look at pigs,
they are not just pork chops.
Priscilla and
her husband Steve raise,
train and perform
Vietnamese Pot Bellied Pigs.
In 1985, 18 Pot Bellies were
brought to the United States
now there are almost
50,000 of them.
Priscilla and Steve are
preparing for a show
at the American Pet Expo
in California, one of the
largest pet shows in America.
Training pigs means working
with their natural behaviors.
She's always thinking,
you can see it in her eyes.
For example, in the
wild, pigs are foragers,
they look for food in
many creative ways.
I think
that pigs use most of their
intelligence to get food.
The pig thinks, how can
I outsmart my owner,
how can I get that
cheese without jumping
over the jump?
Maybe I can jump the jump
twice and get twice as much
cheese, they're
complicated animals.
The star of the
show is a pig named Nellie.
She's the brains
of the operation.
And the inventor of a
new kind of bowling.
Okay, here's
your pins, Nellie.
Nellie was
simply supposed to knock
the bowling ba*ls down,
and one time she didn't,
and she used her snout to
knock the ba*ls down,
because she figured it out,
well the idea of the trick
is to knock the pins down,
so why does it
have to be a ball?
Do
we have a strike, Nellie?
Do we have a strike?
Yeah!
Mudslinger, Mudslinger!
Its time to go to
work, let's go!
Oh there you are!
Good boy!
Are you ready to go to work?
In Denver,
Colorado, another pig shows
off his intelligence.
This is Mudslinger,
a ten month old potbellied pig
whose already learned
40 different tricks.
Mudslinger's learning
to weave between my legs.
At ten months
old, this is amazing how fast
he's learned this trick.
John Vincent
is an aerospace engineer.
But he also leads a performing
troupe called Top Hogs.
But
what are you gonna do
if I walk backwards?
Oh yeah!
Pigs love to be
mentally challenged,
they love to learn.
They don't just go through
the steps of a behavior,
they actually
think through it.
They see
the beginning and the end,
and then they figure
out how to get there.
Good boy.
I realized
how smart pigs really are,
when one of the pigs was
rolling the golf ball to the
hole, and he was having
trouble getting it in the
hole, well he knew the point
of the trick was to get the
ball in the hole, and
Mudslinger actually pushes the
golf ball over and then
lifts the hole up and puts
it over the golf ball.
Good boy.
These
performing pigs can
solve some big problems.
But other pigs can
be a big problem.
And they are so big,
they need a big name.
Hogzilla!
Hunter Chris Griffin
shot this monster hog.
He claimed it was 12
feet long and weighed
over 1,000 pounds.
The photo became an
Internet sensation,
and the legend of
"Hogzilla" was born.
Who believes anything
on the internet?
But then.
Florida 2004.
Georgia 2005.
Alabama 2007.
Where are these humongous
hogs coming from?
The biggest pig turned out
to be the Georgia hog shot by
hunter Bill Coursey
and his son Russell.
They named the beast,
"Son Of Hogzilla".
Weighing in at 1,100 pounds,
made it the heaviest
free-ranging pig
ever recorded.
So big, they hauled it
away in a bulldozer.
Now Son of Hogzilla
is preserved forever.
But will there be The Son
of the Son of Hogzilla?
Bill.
Good to see you.
Good to see you.
Hey Bill good
to see you again.
He looks a
little different don't he?
Bill has come
to pick up his trophy,
and find out where this
giant pig came from.
It's big.
Yeah. I knew it was
big when I shot him.
Wildlife ecologist
Dr. Jack Mayer investigated
the first Hogzilla.
This is the largest
wild pig I have ever measured.
It just amazes some of the
features this has the size of
the nose pad is just huge.
The ears are bigger than
anything I've seen before.
With a boar this size
across the shoulders that
would have been easily
been twice the, the width of the
head and then the rest of the
animal from the top of the
shoulders to the sternum would
have been about that
big, come back here,
the front legs would have
been here, then the back legs
would have been over here,
and this beast would have
gone all the way over here,
just an incredible animal.
Millions
of years ago,
the ancestors of pigs
grew as big as bison,
ten feet long
and over one ton,
with a brain the
size of an orange.
Over time, the bodies of these
proto-pigs became smaller,
their brains became larger,
evolving into wild hogs.
Wild hogs still roam
across the planet,
and much of the United States.
In
1990 we had wild pigs
in about 19 states,
currently we got them
in almost 40 states,
and we estimate there,
there may be as many as
six million wild pigs
running around in
the backwoods of the US.
This is
a typical wild hog, wild
pig that you see in this
area, the head
is a lot flatter,
the ears are much smaller.
If you
look at the nosepad, look
how small it is on this
animal, look how immense, how
big it is on your hog.
This is something you
see once in a lifetime.
Did a wild hog
become a wild Hogzilla?
Or it might be a
different kind of pig.
A farm pig that escaped from
the farm a long time ago.
These pigs are
called feral hogs.
When a domestic pig escapes,
its wild instincts take over.
It grows long, thick hair.
And its body becomes
stronger and tougher.
Jack thinks the Hogzillas are
actually domestic pigs that
became enormous on the farm.
Then they escaped.
Eating anything in their way.
And becoming legends.
Maybe next time, it will be
the hunter, that gets stuffed.
Other pigs
are far more friendly.
This is Hamlet, a six
foot, 620 pound hog.
Come on, Hamlet.
His ears
are huge, his tusks are big.
This pig isn't the
only big star in trainer
John Vincent's house.
Hamburger is Hamlet's brother,
weighing in at 610 pounds.
Be gentle.
Thank you.
As pigs go, he's
a rising star.
Pigs grow faster than
almost any other animal,
up to three pounds a
day, some topping out
at over 1,000 pounds.
It's a phenomenal growth
rate, beginning on day one.
Dr. Anna Johnson studies pigs
at Iowa State University.
Iowa's home to
approximately three million
people and 17 million pigs,
make that
17 million and one.
You can see
her ears are pinned back,
her eyes are open,
and pigs can both see,
and they can also hear
when they are born.
From the
moment of birth,
this piglet is on its own.
In the first few
hours, these little
guys are very, very busy.
They have to
free themselves from the sack,
they have to break the
umbilical cord, and they have
to find the teat line.
So you can see she's a little
shaky on her legs still,
but remember, she's a newborn.
I mean, human babies
can't, can't do this!
Over the
next two hours,
a dozen more piglets appear,
one every ten minutes.
Pigs are the largest mammal
to deliver such large litters,
up to 16 piglets.
A piglet's first job,
to find food.
To do that, they'll
need a good snout.
Part sniffer,
part shovel, part fingertip.
A pig's snout is
made up of a tough,
flexible material
called "cartilage",
the same material
in people's noses.
A special bone connects
the snout to the head.
Strong muscles help
make the pig a living,
breathing bulldozer.
Pig snouts are even strong
enough to push concrete
blocks out of the way.
And bully their way
to breakfast.
Back in Iowa, the race
is on for mother's milk.
They fight for the teats
that produce the most milk.
Its every pig for himself.
And usually, the
heavyweights win.
They've only just been born,
and already they are fighting
for their life.
The ones who get the
most milk have the best
chance of survival.
The piglets are even
armed with weapons.
Eight tiny, sharp teeth.
The teeth
are aptly called needle teeth.
They are very, very sharp.
No other mammal
is born with teeth that can
injure its own
brothers and sisters!
And they
are used by the piglets as
a form of weapons
when they are trying to
establish that teat order.
But once everyone
has claimed a spot,
the battle is over.
From now on, they just
focus on, well being pigs.
The sow communicates
with her piglets,
telling them to
quiet down, and eat.
15 seconds later, it's over.
But this highly nutritious meal
is already working its magic.
Okay, we'll just
pop him in this bucket.
There
we go, it's 2.6 pounds.
In six months, he'll
weigh 265 pounds.
And that would be the
equivalent of you having
a baby today weighing
about eight pounds, and
in six months' time
that, that baby would
weigh around 800 pounds.
Could you imagine that?
Having a half ton child running
around your house at six
months of age, I
can't imagine that.
In the race to
survive, pigs are winners.
Fast breeders, with sharp
teeth, sharp senses,
and sharp minds.
And in California, it's
time for Nellie's close up.
Nellie,
its time for makeup.
Yes it is.
Okay,
how 'bout a little blush?
Oh, that looks good.
Good baby.
Kiss momma, that was
a juicy one Nellie.
Let's have a big round of
applause for Nellie.
These pigs anticipate
going to the shows,
and the people love it
because they don't
realize how really smart
these pigs really are.
The toughest
tricks are still to come,
but already, these pigs
have won the crowd over.
And who knows, someday soon,
a pig could save one of
these people's lives.
Pigs are more
like us than we realize.
Maybe not on the surface.
But beneath the skin, pigs
are almost our body double.
Some of their organs are
almost identical to ours.
That makes them great test
subjects for doctors to
practice surgical techniques.
Dr. Doug Bowles will
practice an operation
called an angioplasty.
It opens up clogged
arteries and helps
prevent heart attacks.
Pigs are great to practice on,
because their hearts are
a lot like ours.
Everyday, 10,000 people
die from heart attacks.
Today's procedure is
routine, performed on over
a million people every year.
A video X ray
provides our first look at a
pig's beating heart,
dye is injected into
the pig's bloodstream,
revealing,
'the coronary tree'.
It's so similar to humans,
even a trained eye can mistake
one for the other.
The doctor attaches a
tiny balloon on to a wire.
He inserts it into the pig.
Inside, the balloon
clears out the arteries.
It's like a tune
up for the heart.
The operation is over in
just a few minutes.
In no time at all, the pig is
awake and quickly recovers.
Way to go.
Doctors will
see how the treatment
helps the pig,
and use what they learn to
help save people's lives.
And piglets like these may
someday become the greatest
lifesavers of all.
Organ donors.
They might not seem like
much, until they're seen in a
different light.
Missouri's Dr. Randy Prather
runs an experiment straight
out of science fiction.
These pigs are fluorescent.
He took a gene from a
jellyfish and added it
to their DNA.
The engineered pigs glow
green under ultraviolet light.
Pigs donate skin
to burn victims,
corneal cells to damaged eyes,
pancreatic cells to diabetics
and brain cells to
Parkinson's victims.
Then using ultraviolet light,
doctors can check on how the
transplanted pig parts are
doing in the human patients.
So pigs are a lot like us.
Their bodies, a
reflection of our own.
And maybe even their minds.
Life on the farm involves
a lot of eating.
Baby pigs start with
their mother's milk,
but must soon learn to
survive on their own.
This stage of their life
is called "weaning."
In the wild, piglets are
normally weaned after
three or four months.
But on many farms,
piglets are weaned as
early as two weeks old.
That's too soon!
It stresses the pig out.
And it can have a bad
effect on the it's life.
Come here, little one.
Come here.
Dr. Anna Johnson
and her team perform an
experiment.
These pigs have all
been weaned too early.
They don't know each other
and are very stressed out.
Within moments, two of them
are at each other's throats.
They're
biting each other.
They will bite the
sides of their faces,
they're going to bite
round the ears, they're
going to bite 'round
the front legs.
The rivals
tear into each other.
These fights can continue off
and on for up to two days,
until one pig establishes
itself as the boss hog.
Stressed out pigs
are also more afraid.
This pig has been
weaned too early.
It's placed in the middle of
a three foot tall platform.
Two arms are shielded
by plexiglass.
The other two have
no protection.
This pig only moves
in the closed arms.
It's too afraid to
explore the open areas.
Now a non-stressed out pig
is put on the platform.
It quickly explores all
four arms of the platform.
It's curious and confident,
totally different from the
pig that was weaned too early.
Studying pigs helps us learn
more about how our brains and
our bodies work.
Wow, thank you
What kind of
animal are you Nellie?
Come on, pick out the letters,
Spell it out, Nellie.
But to pigs,
it's all just fun and games.
And we have an "H".
And we have an "A".
Nellie,
what kind of animal are you?
And we have an "M".
M, H, A, M.
Ham!
Let's hear it for the ham.
Let's
hear it for pigs.
Successful survivors.
On the farm, and in the wild.
A very smart animal, that's
anything but ordinary.
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