Pig Facts 11

•  Pigs respond emotionally to music. The structure of the music is important, as some types of music elicit fear in pigs, whereas others elicit playfulness, calmness or happiness.  
• Pigs make a range of facial expressions to signal aggressive intentions, including shortening their snout and pointing their ears forwards. When pigs are scared and retreat from an attack, they place their ears back on their heads and slightly close their eyes. 
• Pigs love to play, and playing makes them feel good. When they are playing and feeling positive, pigs move their tails more and move their ears less.  
• Pigs can use mirrors! A study of pig learning found that pigs can obtain information from a mirror, like finding food out of sight but visible in the mirror, indicating assessment awareness in pigs. 
• Pigs are empathetic. Pigs have been found to exhibit emotion contagion – they feel an emotion after witnessing the same emotion in another individual.  
• Pigs who have been defeated in previous fights, and pigs with aggressive personalities, feel more emotionally negative when they face a new opponent.  
• Pigs watching an aggressive fight between conspecifics, actually feel more anxious than the pigs who are fighting. They are likely to be anticipating the imminent threat of attack.  
• Anxiety levels in pigs reduce faster after a fight when they can engage in positive social behaviours with other pigs. This is known as social buffering, and it can help protect the emotional state of pigs.  
• Pigs born at low birth weight, are mildly impaired cognitively, as they require more training for tasks, compared with pigs born at a normal weight.