To foster awareness about pigs and dispel rumors about the pork industry Southeast Community College, sponsored by the Iowa and Nebraska Pork Producers Assoc., brought in two sows to this year’s River City Rodeo in Omaha, Nebraska.

There are two sides to every issue, says Dennis Toalson, an Ag Instructor at Southeast Community College.  The two live sows, along with one of the sow’s litter of piglets, helps show kids and adults that the treatment of pigs is both humane and safe.

Toalson selects a piglet periodically to show children who are passing by, allowing them to pet the animal.  “They don’t bite,” Toalson says to the four children who are grinning as they take turns petting the piglet.  Cutting notches in the piglets’ ears is like giving them a name, Toalson explains to the children, “but it doesn’t hurt, it’s like your mom getting her ears pierced.”   

One of the sows gave birth to twelve piglets five days earlier, while the other sow was due yesterday, with a hope the sow with provide a live birth for guests.  Sows have a pregnancy period of 114 days, with most sows giving birth to 10-12 piglets weighing anywhere between two and four pounds each, Toalson says.

The sows and piglets also give Toalson an opportunity to showcase Southeast Community College, which is based in Beatrice Nebraska along with two other campuses in Lincoln, Nebraska and Milford, Nebraska.  The Milford campus includes its John Deere training program while the Beatrice campus offers hundreds of acres to farm, along with cows, ewes, sows and horses for students to care for.

The sows and piglets will be given away at the end of the River City Rodeo based on an essay contest that asks youth how they would use the sows and litters.  “Every farmer wants to raise animals because they love animals,” Toalson says.

Photo by: Jess Purviance