Pig question:

[Ellendra]

My soon-to-be-ex-sister-in-law has been filling my nephew's head with all sorts of rubbish. While we're trying to undo the damage, he seems to think his mother is infallible but that everyone else is mislead.

His latest statement had to do with pork. he said "My mommy says that pig meat is bad because they spray pigs with things that make people very, very sick if they eat it, so that's why we pigs are bad for you."

On further questioning, he insisted that I must have talked to the ONLY farmers in the world who didn't follow the practice of spraying their pigs with pure poison.

So, I'm asking all pig farmers, is there anything that commercial farmers spray on their pigs that is known to be toxic?

Are pigs sprayed with ANYTHING while they're being raised? (Mom said her dad sprayed them with water or buttermilk to keep them cool, but besides that?)

I'm just trying to see if there is even the slightest hint of truth to that statement. Unfortunately I can't just come out and say that his mother is a neurotic sociopath with delusions of sanity, hopefully the courts will order her to be committed soon (yes, they're seriously considering it).

Then again, she has him convinced that freckles are caused by eating too much meat, and that candy canes are healthy.

[Thurston Garden]

I can only assume she is a fundamentalist veggie?

I am the second farmer you have spoken to who does not spray his pigs! In fact I can't think why any would - even the commercial lot.

Mine are as happy as pigs in poo and taste devine.

[Brod]

The only occasion I've known of pigs being sprayed is many years (actually decades) ago when my father bought in some weaners to fatten up and they were overridden with lice. IIRC he used a commerical prep which he mixed up in a watering can and poured over them. Not kept pigs for years now (not since the pig marketing board was wound up) so cant say what the current situation is.

[theabsinthefairy]

In all the research and reading I did before we took on pigs - I never heard or read anything to do with spraying pigs - apart from a bit of water if the weather was particularly hot.

We know a farmer who used to intensively rear pigs for meat (not a nice set up having seen it up close - he has retired now) and he has never spraying his pigs with anything.

[ainslie]

I know that used oil USED to be brushed onto livestock to eliminate mange and other external parasites but that was a very very VERY long time ago (like, a few decades...). It was used only seldom and only if there was a serious infestation. The oil blocks the breathing holes of the insects and suffocates them. Now that we know petroleum products are still toxic even if used externally, it is illegal to use them on animals destined for human consumption.

Good luck with your nephew. Damage like that is hard to reverse but not impossible Brainwashing with hogwash, absurd yet frighteningly common. I know of a few stories like that too.

[Ellendra]

I can only assume she is a fundamentalist veggie?

Not quite. She's a fundamentalist You-can't-do-that-but-I-can. She lectures people nonstop about their food choices, while she lives on nachos and cheese puffs, with unwashed spinach for dessert. (Speaking of spraying food with poisons!)

My brother won primary custody of their son after the health inspector saw that her kitchen was full of rotten food. (And the bathroom full of used menstral pads and soiled training pants).

When I say she's a neurotic sociopath, I'm not exagerating.

[ina]

Maybe you can take your nephew along to some city farm or so (if you live in an urban area), or to some farmer who's willing to let him look around - just so he sees what's really going on?