Matt Whyman - The Unexpected Genius of Pigs

Professor Mike Mendl responds to my story like a seasoned parent.

‘Initially, your pig might well have been screaming to express hunger,’ he says. ‘But if you’re rewarding that behaviour they will learn from it.’

‘I didn’t feel I had much choice,’ I tell him.

‘If it was a child you would ignore it.’

I know he’s quite right, of course. Maybe Roxi would’ve desisted had I not given in and served breakfast under my own terms. But then I am quite sure many households within a 500-metre radius would’ve countered by serving me with a noise abatement notice. Regardless of my handling, I am interested in the fact that each pig sought to manipulate the situation to their advantage. Did that make them smart, sneaky or both? As the Professor is one of the country’s foremost experts in pig cognition, he seems pleased to move on from my questionable swine-herding skills and on to his specialist subject.

‘The question of whether some animals can be deceptive began with a study of chimps,’ he says. ‘The original study featured a chimp called Bella. The researchers placed food in a certain place in a field for her. She would take the food and then return to her group. Eventually, the adult male sussed her out, followed her and took the food for himself. Next time, Bella then showed an apparent deception by leading him away from the food before rushing back to get it.’

It’s a story that’s as cute as it is enlightening, but Professor Mendl is keen to point out that this doesn’t mean chimps could mask a winning poker hand. ‘It’s sophisticated,’ he says, ‘but we’re not certain that what they’re doing is intentional deception. It’s just because they’re primates and they look a bit like us that people are ready to draw that conclusion. With pigs,’ he suggests, ‘we are more sceptical.’

In his research, and careful not to fall into the trap of wanting to believe that pigs process thoughts and feelings just as we do, the Professor and two colleagues set up a maze with a food source hidden in a one location. Releasing a pig into the maze, they observed it forage around and figure out how to find the food. On the second visit, the pig demonstrated a sharp sense of spatial awareness as much as a memory by heading straight for the source.

For the next stage of the task, a bigger, more dominant companion followed the informed pig into the maze.

‘Over trials, the bigger pig twigged that the other one knew where to go,’ says the Professor. ‘Eventually, when the informed pig went to the food, the bigger pig followed and displaced it.’

I nod, mindful of the way that Roxi displaced Butch from the breakfast bowl, effectively an all-out assault.

‘After that happened a couple of times,’ the Professor continues, ‘the one with the knowledge would not go to the food bucket straight away. Now, one possibility is that the informed pig thought, “Ah, the dominant pig keeps getting to the food and so I’m going to do something different.” On the other hand,’ he says, ‘the informed pig may have just been avoiding the dominant pig because negative things kept happening. Then, once the dominant pig was out of the way, it hurried back for the food. Either way, it’s still a knowledge thing. They’re picking up what to do by association. Once they understand what predicts whether they get – or fail to get – the reward they can be very quick to modify their behaviour.’

I consider my experience in the light of Professor Mendl’s findings. Did Butch and Roxi deceive and exploit each other to get a first crack at the breakfast bowl? In my view, each one had processed the situation they were faced with and worked out how to put themselves first.

According to the Professor’s findings, the key to understanding what makes a pig tick is to recognise its ability to learn . He tells me, for example, how a colleague found some evidence that pigs can grow to understand the concept of reflections. This involved releasing a pig into an arena with a mirror placed just beyond the far end of a barrier. From a certain angle, it enabled the pig to see a food source on the other side. Rather than crashing into the glass, the Professor tells me, the pig appeared to work out how to use the reflection to guide it back around the far end of the barrier in order to reach the food. Whether a pig can recognise its own reflection, which would suggest a degree of self-awareness, we simply don’t know, but we both suspect there is a great deal going on between the ears.

Professor Mendl and his colleagues continue to devise fascinating ways to investigate what degree pigs can be said to be smart or sly. To the best of my knowledge, and under deeply unscientific conditions, all I can say is that I knew two that had repeatedly taken advantage of me.

Wendy’s world

‘I do think pigs are very knowing, but there is a big variation between smart pigs and thick pigs. It’s the same with people, really.’

Wendy Scudamore is so passionate about pigs that it guides her outlook on life. Hidden away on a bucolic farm on the slopes of the Golden Valley in Gloucestershire, her cottage overlooks steep-sided hills and pockets of forest veiled in early-morning mist. Wales is just one field away to the West, with a view of the Black Mountains towards Brecon and a vast, ever-changing sky overhead. On a visit one morning in late spring, I am stopped at the gate by an advance guard of little piglets. They’re rooting around on the farm track for what’s left of a scattering of feed pellets. They’re so locked into their search that I can’t be sure if they’re aware of my presence. I suspect they probably are.

Five minutes later, having entered on their terms, I knock at the farmhouse door to be greeted by a dark-haired, elegant figure in muddy overalls patched at the seat with silver duct tape. Wendy has lived here since 1992, but it’s more than just a home. She introduces me to her son, just back from university and off to walk his dog, while out in the yard and across the fields and paddocks are the pigs that make this a remarkable little world. As she puts on the kettle for tea, checking I’m OK with fresh goat’s milk as that’s all she has, I am struck by how so many of her family pictures feature children through the years, cuddling piglets or being photo-bombed by lumbering fat sows. Wendy is, without a doubt, a pig person, and I am here to be enlightened by her.

‘I used to promote the intelligence of pigs by taking an agility course around agricultural shows,’ she tells me over a distinct but enjoyable cup of tea. ‘I had one lovely pig who used to do it to music. She would follow me round and I just sort of told her what to do. I wanted to show that they aren’t just lumps of meat you can stick in a pen, rear and eat. A pig is a sentient, emotional and very affectionate creature, and I hoped that it would encourage people to become more concerned about the pork that they buy.’

As the owner of an unruly Miniature Dachshund and a selectively deaf Greek rescue, I am heartened to learn Wendy believes that, like dogs, some pigs are more amenable to picking up tricks than others.

‘In 2010, I was invited to train three little ginger pigs to appear at the Cannes Film Festival,’ she tells me. ‘I did it with a clicker, which drove the soundman mad, but one pig in particular would do everything I asked. Brad was fantastic. He would sit and wait for me to tell him what to do, whereas the other two just wouldn’t listen. Nicole Pigman was the worst,’ she says, and I try to keep a poker face. ‘I just couldn’t get her attention. They were from the same litter, just different genders.’

‘Is it a boy-girl thing?’ I ask.

‘The third pig was a boar, and though he was quite smart, it was Brad who stood out as the star. I think it came to down to concentration span,’ she suggests, and then tells me Brad is still alive and well and enjoying his autumn years up in one of the paddocks. She talks about him like an old thespian friend in retirement. As her stories continue, it strikes me that Wendy has formed a lifelong bond with every one of her pigs that begins with her recognition that these are creatures of significant intelligence.