The Unexpected Genius of Pigs

by Matt Whyman

  As a one-off, I considered the moment worth sharing with my wife and kids. Over the course of the next few mornings, when I found Butch waiting for me beside his snoring partner, and then repeating the same trick, I marked him down as being as shrewd as he was small.

  It took a while for Roxi to rumble him, and prime herself to wake up just as soon as Butch slipped from their bed. Naturally, she charged out and reclaimed her position as the pig entitled to first pickings. Butch seemed resigned to the situation, and took himself off for a wee. As he negotiated his way back to the sound of crunching and munching from his sister, I tossed him a handful of conciliatory nuts to keep him occupied while he waited.

  The pig in the labyrinth

  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 i
t 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.

  After Bertie

  With my limited success in dog training, I know that treats are a key motivator. The clicker is only effective once the dog associates the sound with something that makes it drool, but do pigs operate on the same basis? When I ask Professor Mendl, I am surprised and not a little delighted by his considered view.

  ‘Pigs are motivated in my tests by the food reward,’ he says, ‘but the experience of the test itself is also rewarding. We don’t know for certain, but pigs seem to enjoy it. When we work with them in the maze test you get the impression they are keen to do the task and not necessarily just for the food. It’s difficult to disentangle,’ he continues, ‘but when we work with them for several days, they learn in what order they’re supposed to leave their pens and start to queue up accordingly. So, one will think, “Well, Bertie is first and then it’s me.” They learn that sequence and know when to come out.’ The Professor tells me that he has even seen cases where one pig will push another out of the way if they’re in the wrong order.

  ‘So, they’re switched on and also determined,’ I say.

  ‘It suggests they’re motivated by something to do that is reasonably interesting,’ the Professor replies, choosing his words with the precision his work demands.

  At the same time, I think of Wendy and her agility pig in a show ring of straw bales, and wonder who had the most fun.

  Egg heads

  For a while, Butch and Roxi spent their days cohabiting happily with my chickens. The pigs proved to be a fantastic fox deterrent, which made this set-up seem ideal. With their sleeping quarters at one end of the enclosure, and the coop at the other, the two sides quietly learned to get along. The pigs had a size advantage, of course, and so if they moved into a spot to root around, the chickens would duly dance out of the way. Nevertheless, as rescues from a battery farm the chickens didn’t suffer fools. They could get cross very quickly, proving sharp with their beaks, and so a mutual respect evolved.

  Until, that is, the pigs cottoned on to the fact that the hens laid treasure inside their coop.

  I had considered that the eggs might be an issue. Then again, the nesting box was tucked at the back of the hen house. I didn’t think Butch and Roxi would be wise to the reason why the hens took themselves in there each morning. Through my eyes, the system was pig-proof.

  In some ways, the chickens only had themselves to blame. Among the flock was a vocal leghorn who liked to announce that she had laid successfully by squawking for several minutes afterwards. Maybe there was something in the tone that eventually told Butch and Roxi that it was worth investigating, which they carried out much like a police raid on a drug den at dawn.

  As Roxi effectively rammed her great head inside the coop to snatch an egg, followed by her colleague, the chickens exploded in feathers and anger. Both she and Butch endured a flurry of pecks as they retreated to their quarters with yolk dripping provocatively from the corner of their mouths. With a heavy heart, as I watched from the bedroom window, the chickens formed a vigilante mob at their door, before wisely retreating, one by one.

  In a bid to help them defend their eggs, which was effectively my rent for their tenancy, I extended the legs on the coop. There was no way that Butch or Roxi could negotiate the narrow ramp that led to it, and indeed I was correct. They just worked on undermining the legs until the whole coop tipped over.

  For a week, I tried different means of preventing the pigs from gaining access to the eggs. Planting the feet deep in the ground just lowered the roost enough to give them access once again, while Butch discovered that headbutting the underside could sometimes cause the eggs to jump and roll out. Every time, driven by their prize, Butch and Roxi found a way. It became a daily mission for them, often requiring ingenuity as much as physical force, and neither would give up until they left with egg on their faces, as intended. Eventually, before someone lost an eye or the pigs evolved their taste from egg to chicken, I evacuated the hens and placed the coop on the lawn. Peace quickly returned to what was left of my garden, along with the recognition that for all my efforts to deter the sly and ingenious fox there was nothing that could beat the tenacity of a pig.

  The journey and the destination

  It sometimes seems to me that the domestic pig has it all figured out. Everything they do in between waking and flopping down together at dusk is undertaken with such enthusiasm that any treat at the end seems almost secondary as a reward. Watch any pig at work in the soil and you could find yourself observing for hours on end as they excavate relentlessly. Using their snout as a shovel, that pig will till, chisel and sweep, and send frequent sprays of soil up into the air. You’d be forgiven for thinking the scale of the undertaking must mean they’ve locked onto something pretty special. Towards the end of the dig, having formed a crater, you might just see the pig’s hindquarters and curly tail as it mines its way towards the prize … invariably a half-rotten acorn, gone in a crunch. Was it really worth the effort?

  ‘They’re just very investigative,’ says Professor Mendl, whose accounts so far of the tasks he sets for pigs not only provides me with enlightening data but sounds like enormous fun for all involved. ‘We’re always putting things into the pens, changing or modifying aspects, and they’ll always find ways to remove or destroy them. Once, we had a drainage cover in a concrete pen. It was flush on the floor, and there was no apparent way they could lift it. But every day, I would go in and it would be gone. I’d have to look everywhere, and eventually find it tucked behind a panel or buried under straw.’

  I express a distinct lack of surprise at the conduct of the pig in this respect, but I am interested to know what drives such investigation.

  ‘Probably food,’ he suggests, ‘but they are also information gathering about lots of other things, and there’s something rewarding for them about this behaviour. Pigs can pick up on olfactory signals in the ground about other pigs, or where good foraging can be found, and all this comes through while they’re searching around.’

  ‘Or hiding drain covers.’

  ‘We read it as mischief-making,’ says the Professor, ‘But I don’t think they’re intentionally trying to wind us up.’

  I take his point, and I’m well aware that in their enthusiastic pursuits Butch and Roxi never set out to give me a headache. It’s perhaps just that it always fell to me to deal with the damage, and it never seemed to end.

  ‘Pigs are also very persistent,’ he offers. ‘A lot of species can be like this, but the nature of their food requires quite a bit of digging. Pigs just demonstrate this in a clear and obvious way.’

  Listening to him, I realise that if I want to understand a pig then I need to stop comparing their behaviour to humans. Toppling a chicken coop or stashing a drain cover might cause us to sigh, but for the perpetrator, everything is there to be examined. What is a bombsite through my eyes is really a forensically combed food scene. The excavation has been conducted with huge enthusiasm, no stone or clump left unturned. It might look like a mess to me, but to the pig it’s the sign of a job well done. And even if such labouring yields nothing more than a withered weed root, well, that’s the icing on the cake. After the bliss of the dig, it must taste like heaven.

  Immovable objects

  On their greatest escape, it took the best part of a day to locate our missing pigs. The trail of destruction from the splintered gap in the fence onwards had gone cold midway down the lane into the village. Together with my wife and children, I combed the fiel
ds and copses in search of Butch and Roxi. We called their names repeatedly, which did nothing more than draw people from their houses to join in with the search.

  By the time we found them, in ancient bluebell woodland flanking the far side of the village, our search party was almost 50 strong.

  Both pigs seemed unaware of the fact that they were busy rooting up a protected species of flower. It wasn’t lost on me, however, and so it was with some urgency that I endeavoured to steer them out of trouble. Neither Butch nor Roxi would budge, however. Such was their focus on the dig that they didn’t even seem to register my presence. As word spread of the discovery, they remained oblivious to the growing number of search volunteers who picked their way into the clearing.

  ‘Time to go,’ I told Roxi, appealing to her directly by crouching in front of her. The pig responded by prising up a batch of bluebells.

  Had this been a dog, I could have grasped it gently by the scruff and steered it out of trouble. A pig provides no such purchase, and it wasn’t just me who tried to push and pull her into line. Roxi simply transformed herself into a living anchor. One that snorted angrily when she’d had enough hands-on attention.

  Butch proved a little more compliant. Being of a more timid nature, he bowed to my begging while a couple of villagers eased him off the flowers, only to turn around at the first opportunity and return to the work at hand. Someone handed me a dog collar and lead, and when the collar didn’t even come close to reaching around their great necks I honestly thought we might just have to leave them to it. I would pay the fines and the pair would go feral and become part of village folklore. Bodmin had its fearsome beast. We would have two wilful pigs with a taste for rare flora.