My children's bedroom

Because it’s a busy day over here at DadWagon (look for exciting new works of actual journalism! from our writers! in other publications! soon!), let’s just continue our pottymouthed theme today and give you this gem about how the Taiwanese are potty training pigs. As an aside: is there anything the Taiwanese can’t do? They make those quick-hitting news animations that mock Lance Armstrong and Snooki, they resist the forceful love-making overtures of the People’s Republic of China, they even put up with DadWagon’s own Matt Gross!

On to pigshit:

Taiwan has been experimenting with a simple solution to the perennial problems of pollution, smell and excessive water use on pig farms: train the pigs to use a toilet.

After some encouraging results the government now wants all the island’s pig farms to adopt the practice as it looks to burnish its green credentials, offering cash to farmers and pushing the benefits such as less watery manure that can be sold at higher prices.

“To use the pig waste as manure is a very good approach within the spirit of green energy, much better than just letting it go to waste and pollute river water,” Stephen Shen, Taiwan’s environment minister, told Reuters Television.

“And I think that can help us a lot in decreasing CO2 emissions and fighting global warming.”

The “toilet” consists of a series of iron bars installed above the floor in the corner of the pen. Pigs step between the bars to go about their business, with the waste collected in a single, easy to clean spot.

Now, I have no idea whether this will actually work and save the environment or North Carolina, which is, of course, pig-lagoon central. But I do know that I will be installing iron bars above the floor in a corner of my kids’ room so that their waste, too, can be “collected in a single, easy to clean spot.”