Rob takes me to the pig pen he’s built in the backyard of his parents’ suburban home. He kneels to scratch the belly of one of his new purchases, a little black and white Hampshire he calls Nickleback, after a favorite rock band. Nickleback’s companion, a bright bubble-gum pink little crossbreed he calls Red Hot Chili Pepper, doesn’t want to be touched.

“She’s sunburned,” Rob explains. “They had never been outside until last week when I brought them home from the breeder’s. They were born in a barn.”

Pigs, like people, get sunburned. Normally, pigs in open fields, or in the wild for that matter, will roll in mud to stay cool (pig’s don’t sweat) and to protect their skin from sunburn. But the yard Rob has built for his pigs is eight-inches deep in clean, soft bark shavings from the feed-and-seed store. Except for a kiss of mud on their blunt little noses, Rob’s pigs are perfectly clean.

“A few years ago I had pigs over there,” he gestures toward a flowerbed exploding with daffodils and peonies.  “They got whipworms, and I had to give them worm medicine three times a day for two weeks straight to get rid of them.” Whipworms, Rob further explains, cause diarrhea in pigs, which can be dangerous to the pig’s health and slows their weight gain. And whipworms can last in the soil for up to eleven years. So, Rob built a new shelter for his pigs and gave over the old site, tilled and ready for flowers, to his mom, Maggie. “But I don’t want these guys digging too deep into the dirt here, because there might be whipworms here, too.”

Maggie Taylor, an Extension agent at Oregon State University, joins us at the pigpen fence, where the little round porkers run over to greet her. “Rob, that pig needs a mud bath,” she says, reaching down toward the bright pink one.

“I’ll get her sunscreen,” Rob says.

Rob uses sunscreen for people on his pigs, SPF 36, the same stuff he rubs on his own freckled pale skin. Rob was not raised in a barn, but his redhead’s complexion makes him sensitive to sunburn, just like his pigs.

Human sunscreen and a fastidious pigpen are not the only luxuries he provides his two swine projects. “I feed them ShowFeed; it’s a high quality, high protein mix and it costs $15 a bag. I never feed them people food; it’s got too much fat and sugar.”

Efficient and profitable swine production depends on an understanding of the influences of genetics, environment, health, and nutrition. Feed represents 60 to 75 percent of the total cost of pork production. From the 4-H Swine Handbook.

To fatten pigs, Rob explains, you feed them carbohydrate-rich foods like corn. To slim them down, you feed protein and fiber-rich foods like soy beans or oats. That is the theory behind the Atkins Diet, too. Pigs, like people, have non-chambered stomachs. Unlike sheep, cattle, and goats, swine don’t eat grass but prefer much the same food as people do. This, and the pig’s stubborn resistance to trekking long distances, delayed its domestication by millennia, until the development of agriculture could ensure enough grain for both man and beast.

Once established, pig production spread throughout much of the world. Although reviled in Middle Eastern cultures where religious beliefs forbid owning or eating pigs, pork became a staple food in Europe. Christopher Columbus took eight pigs with him on his second voyage to America. Hernando de Soto landed in Florida with 13 pigs that quickly became barter for peace with the native people. As American cities grew up in the 19th century, free-roaming porkers served as garbage collectors, recyclers, and on-the-hoof meat markets for working class city-dwellers. But rambunctious feral pigs were eventually seen as a hazard, threatening children and entangling traffic as cities grew more crowded.  In 1860, New York City banished pigs from its downtown streets. Other cities followed suit until, by the turn of the 20th century, pigs were consigned to the farm, and the vast majority of urban garbage was buried, burned, or dumped at sea. Throughout their history, runaway pigs have moved easily back to their wild ways, displaying stealth, ferocity, and an ability to grub a meal from field, forest, or garbage dump. Today, feral pigs are increasing in the southern half of the U.S., where they are both big sport and a big nuisance.