Pig

Pigs are passive mobs that provide the quintessential porkchops that sustain many a player and are a renewable source of food in the Overworld. They stand 1.875 blocks tall, 0.625 blocks wide and 1.25 blocks long.

Uses
Each pig will drop 0 - 2 raw porkchops upon death. as of Beta 1.5, Pigs that die from fire damage will drop 0 - 2 cooked ones instead.

Behavior
Pigs roam the Overworld in groups of 3 - 4. When they encounter obstacles, they will often try to breach them by hopping and make no attempt to stay out of water, bobbing up and down to stay afloat.

By right-clicking on a pig while holding a saddle, a player can ride it. However, the movement of the rider and pig cannot be controlled by the player. Riding a pig off a cliff is one of the more unusual and challenging achievements in Minecraft.

History
Pigs were introduced in Survival Test, dropping 0 - 2 brown mushrooms and awarding a player 10 points each when killed. When they were first added, pigs looked "cross-eyed" and both eyes were closer to each other, but this was changed shortly after. After Alpha, each pig would provide the player with 0 - 2 raw porkchops.

With the Beta 1.5 update, an achievement was added for riding a pig off a cliff. Pigs struck by lightning would be turned into zombie pigmen. , and pigs that died from being set on fire would drop ready-cooked porkchops.

Bugs

 * If you save and quit while riding a pig the "Saving Chunks" bar will not fill up properly and can stop filling up and appear to be frozen before it suddenly opens the main menu (without the bar filling up any more).
 * In single player, monster spawners contain a spinning miniature mob of the type that will be spawned. On SMP, on the other hand, monster spawners always contain a miniaturized pig, no matter what mob they spawn.

Trivia

 * Any Mob Spawner placed by a Player will be a Pig Spawner.
 * Pigs have a separate "armor" file (the saddle), but do not spawn with it.
 * If you manage to get a pig with a saddle into a minecart, the pig will boost the minecart. This still works in Beta 1.7