Matt Whyman - The Unexpected Genius of Pigs

An animal of mass distraction

Of course, everyone knows that taking on a young pet can be testing. Dogs need to learn you’re the boss, while cats take a while to work out how to manipulate you to their advantage. Pigs are a lot like toddlers. They can be gentle and inquisitive souls and then break into a tantrum when things don’t go their own way. Unlike little kids, as I found out, they don’t grow out of this behaviour. Over time, it just becomes more forceful and out of place in a domestic environment.

What’s more, there are strict rules and regulations to observe, as set out by the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA). In giving pigs any kind of food that’s been in a kitchen, for example, I risked contravening various biosafety laws. It could earn a hefty fine, but our little livestock didn’t know that. Nor did the youngest of my children as he toddled around with a biscuit in hand and two little pigs trailing after him like low-level jackals. Ultimately, you only have to witness a minipig having a meltdown because you won’t share a sandwich to recognise that life might be easier for everyone if they moved outside.

Butch and Roxi lived inside with us for just a very short time. As the novelty wore off, it very quickly became clear to me that the house was no fit environment for a pig of any description. They’re purpose-built to dig about in the soil, seeking out roots and buried treats, not jam their snouts into the wine rack or flop about in front of the TV waiting for the lottery results. Surprisingly, it didn’t take much to convince Emma and the kids. While they had also come to recognise that this special breed of pig didn’t require carpet under hoof and central heating, I think they also craved a little peace. To be sure they didn’t change their minds, I adopted some ex-battery hens to befriend my sole surviving bird and then played the fox protection card.

And so it was, with a clutch of post-institutionalised chickens perched on the handle of the toolbox beside me, I converted the side of the shed into cosy sleeping quarters for Butch and Roxi. The fencing seemed sturdy enough, I decided, having given it a shake, and there was more than enough space for everyone to peacefully cohabitate.

The growing presence of pigs

In the clear light of day, once the turf war between pig and poultry settled down, it became clear that Butch and Roxi were no longer quite so mini. Roxi developed the fastest. In fact, there was a period when she appeared to look bigger every single time I went out to serve up their beloved pig nuts for breakfast and supper. They also fattened themselves up somewhat by gorging on all the acorns that dropped from the oak tree, along with the leaves when they fell in the autumn.

While Roxi rivalled our late German Shepherd dog in size, Butch compensated by becoming stockier and transforming into a mighty excavator. Having taken over the chicken enclosure, the pair turned it into a cratered mess of mud. I felt so sorry for the birds that I would let them out onto the lawn. Around that time, unwilling to miss out on the party, one of the pigs learned how to lift the latch on the gate. Lashing it shut kept them in check for a while. Butch and Roxi responded by growing big enough to prise away the picket fencing with their snouts.

Surveying the remains of the garden one day, as the pigs slept off their hard work inside the shed, I refused to be defeated. I set about strengthening the fencing – effectively an epic bodge job – and just assumed that our minipigs must have reached their full size. Which makes me laugh in retrospect.

Size and spirit

As time passed, and friends or neighbours visited, they’d often catch their breath on seeing the honking great beasts amid the craters and spoil heaps that was our garden. Within a year, Roxi stood thigh-high to me and had developed a taste for house bricks. She kept rooting them up out of nowhere and then crunching them into powder. A pink pig with dark splodges, she had bat-like ears and a face that could best be described as ‘shovel-like’. She was densely built as well; a solid mass of muscle, fat and obstinacy. Had we let her stay in the house as a piglet, we’d have needed a winch to get her out.

Butch wasn’t quite so monstrously big. In the right light he could even have passed as cute. He was all black with an elongated belly and a soulful expression modelled on Yoda from Star Wars . Castrated at an early age, because frankly, the consequences of leaving him intact were unthinkable, our male minipig also reminded me of a henpecked husband around Roxi. She really did rule the roost, much to the displeasure of the chickens. Had she taken to crowing at sunrise, I don’t think any of us would have been surprised.

Without a doubt, it was a struggle to serve the growing needs of our little livestock. The bolstered picket fencing felt like a dam containing rising waters, but it held all the same. I can’t be as positive about the six-foot close-board garden fencing that formed the back of the enclosure. I panicked the first time I found a splintered, pig-shaped hole in it one morning, and spent the whole day tracking them down. The second and third time was equally troubling. When it happened again I began to wonder if they had been sent on purpose to test the boundaries of my patience.

Around this time, Emma took it upon herself to contact the breeder. Butch and Roxi didn’t exactly match the pictures on the website of cute little creatures curled up in a shoe box, and so she reached out to address it with them like a consumer’s champion crossed with an avenging angel. I have no doubt that my wife would have taken them to task in a reasonable manner, while leaving them in no doubt that passing off pigs in this way was something that had to stop unless they wanted a tall and angry blonde on their doorstep. As it turned out, I can only think that another disgruntled minipig owner had got in before her, because the breeder was no longer trading.

Even when Butch and Roxi behaved themselves, there was no ignoring their ever-increasing size. Despite the squealing, and the fact that our garden looked like a battleground, our neighbours were surprisingly understanding. I lost count of the number of times I had to pre-empt a noise complaint by popping round to apologise. I ended up giving away all the eggs produced by our chickens by way of compensation. In conversation about our plight, they seemed to recognise that we had no idea what we’d let ourselves in for. I dare say they quietly considered us to be foolhardy and impulsive in falling for the idea of keeping pigs as pets without due diligence, and they’d be right.

Where there’s muck …

In some ways, however, we were lucky. Despite the sacrifices, we just about had the space to serve Butch and Roxi’s welfare. Their upkeep dominated our lives. I even called a halt to my work as a novelist to write a cautionary tale about the experience in the form of a memoir. So, what happened here? Had we been conned?

While belatedly attending a pig-keeping course, a conversation with the wise old boy running it opened my eyes to the reality of our situation. He believed the long-standing interest in pigs, and the money that the idea of a miniaturised version could command, led some people in the business to cut corners. ‘Minipigs aren’t a recognised registered breed,’ he told me. ‘Anyone can mate two small-sized pigs, but there’s no guarantee that the offspring will stay small. That would take generations of strictly controlled breeding. Maybe we’ll see such a thing in thirty or forty years from now,’ he added, though it offered little comfort. ‘But what you have are two mixed-breed pigs.’ As for their status as brother and sister, the man took one look at the photograph I showed him and chuckled to himself.