Gonna play devil's advocate here. But honestly, where do you guys think the shelter piggies originally come from? I'm betting MOST were previously owned by people who bought their pigs (or the pig's parents) from a large petstore chain, such as Petsmart. Or if not petsmart, a breeder with similar methods as those in the video.
Now I'm not saying "OH HEY IT'S COOL THEY TREAT THEM LIKE THAT WHATEVER". But we have to face the facts. Many of the pigs we buy (and yes, the exchange of money for items is buying, whether it is at a shelter or store) from the shelter probably spent part their lives at a supplier such as this, thus also contributing to the problem.
Instead of shaming people who buy from petstores (which is honestly MOST of what I see on this site), we need to work to make places like this animal friendly. For example, I was originally planning on going to a Pet Supermarket to get a piggie, and before I did, I was seriously stressed about how people on this site were going to make me feel horribly for doing so. In the end, I got my girls from a shelter, because it was cheaper, which was more appealing to my father, who was the one paying for them.
This is going to sound harsh. But you are all animal people. SO how can you all say that we shouldn't consider buying an animal from a petstore as not saving a life, when those animals have suffered already and might die in the store. I truly do not understand WHY one animal's life is considered by this site to be more important than another's life.
This video, RIGHT HERE, is why we need to change how things are done at suppliers for petstores. Not make them completely taboo, so more animals will die when the ones NOT bought at the store are "too old to sell".
I really don't mean to offend anyone here. Really, truly, I don't. This is honestly just how I feel, my personal opinion, and partly playing devil's advocate. Of course I prefer to adopt from a shelter, both because piggies are only $5 there than $30 at the petstore, but also because they were abandoned. But some people aren't lucky enough to have a shelter that is capable of putting up piggies, or don't have any rescues near-by. I know my shelter was stressed about having the 3 piggies they had, because they had a small 3sq foot cage, and didn't have space or proper food or bedding for them. They weren't going to be able to keep them. So please, consider that some shelters are not much better qualified to have piggies, either. They put down animals regularly, after all.
