AHC: Pig dairy industry

[NibiruMul]

Pigs are notable among large livestock in that even though pigs can produce milk, their milk is generally not consumed by humans or used in dairy products. Now here's a challenge: make an industry based on pig dairy products a thing. What do you think would need to be done for a society to make a viable pig dairy industry? What kind of selective breeding would need to be done to make pigs that are viable milk producers?

If the pig dairy industry becomes a thing, what do you think cuisine would look like with pig's milk and pig cheese?

 

[Minchandre]

So, why don't we drink pig milk?

Two big reasons.

First, pigs have 14ish teats compared to the 2 or 4 of cows, sheep, goats, camels, and horses. So much more work to milk.

Second...nursing pig mothers are ornery. They can be very aggressive, much more so than the animals we normally milk. This isn't insurmountable, especially with a few generations' selective breeding, but it's a bug factor into why they weren't milked.

Add to that the fact that pigs have historically often been kept in a sort of semi-feral way, and we have no pig milk. Oh, and pigs also nurse for much less time, usually about 3 weeks compared to 12+ weeks for the other animals listed above.

I think what you'd need is for a culture to have other milk-bearing animals, and then somehow lose access to all domesticate animals but pigs (and maybe like dogs and cats and stuff), then they might try to develop pigs for milk.

But natively, pig milk is too inconvenient to develop without having some strong idea of wanting milk already.

 

[Aisha Clan-Clan]

what does pig milk taste like?

 

[Tessitore]

I don't think anyone knows. I vaguely remember reading something years ago about some mad chef bloke going to great lengths trying to get some for mad chef reasons but I can't remember if he had any luck.

 

[Arkenfolm]

I think what you'd need is for a culture to have other milk-bearing animals, and then somehow lose access to all domesticate animals but pigs (and maybe like dogs and cats and stuff), then they might try to develop pigs for milk

This happened a lot in Asia along with other cases like cultures only having pigs while their neighbors had a more "complete" set of domesticates, but probably didn't happen because in addition to the reasons mentioned, there wasn't much of a dairy culture among any of those groups. Good example is some Austronesian and Papuan peoples, who incidentally are also very likely to "lose" domesticates as their culture evolves.

One weird but vaguely plausible case could involve migration of a Siberian reindeer herding group south, that is, a group who milks reindeer. They acquire pigs from a Tungusic-speaking group, the Ainu (who raised pigs before the 15th century or so), etc. The reindeer die off from some epidemic caused by local deer (as occurs in North America), warfare with neighboring tribes, are eaten during a famine, or some mixture. The group turns to pig's milk, using skills wrangling large, dangerous female reindeer to milk sows. A breed of "milk pig" emerges that while it doesn't produce much milk, produces enough for some valuable food goods.

what does pig milk taste like?

Chocolate milk? Who knows.

 

[ramones1986]

what does pig milk taste like?

I was curious, too.

 

[joho6411]

Well,..... if it tasted like bacon... we'd be buying it from vending machines since the invention of the refrigerated vending machine, move over pepsi, move out coke, & make way for : " Pretty Petunia Brand (c) Pigs Milk" . The milk that makes you say "WEEEE" "WEEE" "LOUDA! BOY!!! weeeeeee!🐷

 

[tonsofun]

According to Wikipedia "Pig milk is not considered suitable for commercial production for a number of reasons. Pigs are considered difficult to milk. The sow herself is reluctant to be milked, may be uncooperative or become spooked by human presence, and lactating pigs may be quite aggressive."
This is probably why we drink cow instead of pig. Cows were probably a lot easier to milk and people just stuck with it.

what does pig milk taste like?

It supposedly tastes very gamy and is supposedly more watery than cows milk.

 

[Johannes Parisiensis]

One of the reasons why sows aren't milked might be because there's easier animals at hand such as cows, reindeers and goats. Pigs are too aggressive and time spend on selective breeding might be dificult to justify when other animals are already there.