The Unexpected Genius of Pigs

by Matt Whyman

  Eventually, a villager who kept pigs of his own showed up with a wooden board and a bucket containing a handful of feed. He handed the bucket to one of my daughters and instructed her to stand with it in front of Roxi. The pig paid her no attention at first. Then our good Samaritan placed the board to one side of Roxi’s field of vision and tapped her lightly on the flank with the stick. With a grunt, the pig lifted her snout from the soil and sniffed the air. With the board blinkering her field of vision, and her senses locked onto the smell of pig feed, she took one step forward, followed by another, as my daughter with the bucket, the villager in charge, and the crowd behind Butch began the slow procession home.

  When I recount the story to Professor Mendl, I expect him to confirm the age-old belief that pigs are intrinsically stubborn. Instead, he provides an explanation that seems wholly reasonable. It also reminds me that had our pigs been genuinely mini as advertised, things would have been more manageable.

  ‘It’s very difficult to persuade a pig to do something,’ he agrees. ‘But that’s because of their size. If they want to be stubborn then you know about it, but a cat can do exactly the same thing and you just pick it up. The fact is a lot of animals will stand their ground or ignore you,’ he adds, and places cattle squarely in that frame. ‘It’s just with the bigger ones that stubbornness is magnified.’

  Be more pig

  From an early age, we call upon the animal world to help us make sense of human behaviour. From the untrustworthy snake to the wise owl, the wily fox and grumpy bear, we tell stories featuring such characters to help define our identities and values. Often drawn from myth and fable, such tales are entertaining and serve a useful purpose, but does it distort our relationship with the animals themselves? My Dachshund can be loyal to order, if I have a treat in hand, but at any other time he’ll switch allegiance for the nearest available lap. The same goes for the supposedly brave lion, stubborn donkey and a whole host of creatures that have been categorised by an attribute that doesn’t necessarily reflect their true nature.

  Like Wendy Scudamore, I have come to see pigs as individual characters. Some strike a charming first impression, others are bold, belligerent, playful or free-spirited, but spend a long period of time with any pig and their personality will take shape. It’s as elaborate as ours, but with a mind that operates on a sensory level in which smell opens up a world we cannot comprehend.

  So, let’s not dismiss the pig as greedy or messy, when the reality is this hard-working creature has developed a passion for turning the earth in search of a mere scrap of food. Can we really call a pig lazy when they’re prepared to dig all day on detecting something tasty in the soil? I might’ve marked my two down as wilfully destructive, but in their minds laying waste to the lawn is a measure of progress and a means of mapping their environment. Yes, they can be obstinate, but then again so can I, and if I shared their ability to focus on a task and not give up until it’s done, I’d be an awful lot more productive.

  In many ways, we have done a great disservice to the pig by associating it with so many disparaging adjectives. The animal is far from stupid, ugly or ignorant, though whether any are sexist we can only guess. As we’ll see in the next chapter, when it comes to matters of the heart they certainly view life differently.

  4

  The Heart and Soul of a Pig

  Holly and Poddy

  Over tea in Wendy’s farm kitchen, with her three Collie dogs lounging at the foot of our stools, she tells me a story about two pot-bellied pigs, which stays with me all day.

  ‘Holly and Poddy were the first pigs I had,’ she begins. ‘They lived at the bottom of my garden, and then I moved them out to the field. They were quite nervous, as pot bellies often are, and always stuck together. Holly was slightly the underdog. She followed Poddy everywhere for the first six months of their lives.

  ‘And then suddenly Holly died,’ she tells me so abruptly that I catch my breath. ‘I found her on the stable floor. Poddy was with her, and she was heartbroken. Now, whenever a pig passes away, I always leave them with their friends for 24 hours. Even the dogs will go in. That way, everyone becomes aware that they’ve gone, and there’s nothing there. The whole time, Poddy lay with Holly,’ says Wendy, ‘and when I took Holly away, she literally cried.’

  Wendy holds her cup with both hands as she tells me this. She sips her tea as if to take stock of her thoughts.

  ‘Poddy just whined and didn’t want to come out,’ she continues. ‘When she did, she would walk around the yard, go back in and start whining again, and this went on and on. I had other pigs, and Poddy integrated with them, but who knows if she ever got over it. You can’t ask her. I don’t know if she ever really made another friend.’

  In a bid to help her grieving pot belly, Wendy tells me that she put her ‘in pig’, which is breeder speak for pregnancy. ‘I thought that if Poddy had a litter then I could keep one back and she would become just as attached as she was to Holly, but it didn’t work out. She went to full term, her milk came in, but then she fell poorly. The vet came out. He examined her, but found nothing there.’

  Wendy pauses, and picks up on my puzzled expression.

  ‘If something goes wrong early during a pig’s pregnancy,’ she explains, ‘the mother can reabsorb the dead foetuses in her litter. In this case, Poddy lost everything, but her milk still came through. She was sick for a long time afterwards, and though she recovered eventually and lived until she was 12 she wasn’t the same without Holly. She would snuggle up with other pigs, but I could always separate her easily. She just never had a friend like Holly again.’

  Wendy is careful not to humanise her pigs. When she says they cry, she always stresses that there are no tears and it’s simply a description of the sound. In listening to her story, it’s easy to relate to Poddy’s lifelong plight. ‘Some pigs are more emotional than others,’ she adds, ‘just as some are more sociable. But I have never seen the level of pain that Poddy displayed.’

  In addressing the subject of a pig’s emotional range, I am well aware that we are in a realm of both science and wonder. Professor Mendl rightly deals in data. He qualifies his responses on this subject by saying we don’t really know for sure, and that’s just as it should be. However, having seen Roxi buck with apparent glee whenever she slipped the gate into the garden, or watched Butch nuzzle my son when he was very small, I’m quite prepared to accept that pigs have feelings, too. They might not have the same understanding of joy or fear, but we‘ll always use words to describe what we’re seeing based on our experience. Nevertheless, when one of Wendy’s pigs dies, I can understand why she allows time for the other pigs to register the loss. She might be drawing on our bereavement process, but I’m quite sure we’re not alone in drawing comfort from it.

  If anything, by accepting that pigs are emotional creatures just like us, the bond between us becomes closer. One way to explore this is to consider their model of family. It’s very different from our own, and even alien in some ways, but tells us a great deal about pigs as much as about ourselves.

  The matrilineal group

  Welcome to a world in which the sows stick together. For the domestic pig living freely, just like its wild boar ancestor, a family unit is made up of two to five females and their offspring, along with one boar. The young sows tend to stay with their mothers, while on maturity, the boys instinctively seek new pastures. Collectively, Professor Mendl tells me, this set-up is often known as a ‘sounder’. He goes on to refer to such a group using an altogether different term. Still, it’s one that helps me process what’s going on.

  ‘The adult male is dominant,’ he begins, ‘but his role is to protect his harem during the breeding season. Outside of that, he may drift off a bit.’

  I want to know if the boar steps back simply because the sap stops rising. The Professor tells me that size can also be a factor, in that he might gather too many sows under his wing than he’s able to cope with and then leave himself open to a challe
nge.

  ‘When young boars depart from a harem they emigrate in small bachelor groups,’ he explains, and such phrasing is not lost on him either. ‘One might be successful in taking over another group, or hiving off sows from a large group to create a harem of his own.’

  ‘Is it a peaceful takeover?’ I ask.

  A wry smile from the Professor leads into his answer: ‘During the breeding season, a boar will want to retain access to his females. So if another male comes into the group during this time they are strongly repulsed. They will fight, but first, they do some displaying, which often takes the form of parallel walking. It’s a way of showing off to each other, much like red deer, to resolve any differences. If that doesn’t sort it out then things will escalate into head-to-head fighting and biting. Eventually, one will win, which really means the other decides to leave.’

  Out of season, he tells me, a group takeover might well occur simply because the boar in charge has taken his eye off the ball. He describes how another boar might come in, draw away some of the females and form a group of his own. ‘Within this structure, there’s also no need for the sows to go looking for a male. If the group becomes too big for one boar, another male will come in and take some away. How they persuade them is a good question, but often it’s the younger members who go, and a natural equilibrium is achieved.’

  As a social model, the Professor tells me, the matrilineal group minimises inbreeding by encouraging young boars to form sounders of their own, while allowing the pig in the wild to flourish. In effect, it’s a tight family unit, often comprising mothers and their daughters, and a leader primed to lose it all when he ages, over-reaches or becomes complacent.

  I can’t help but picture such a structure from a human perspective, and smile to myself at the idea of the alpha boar who is kept in check this way. I can also see how the arrangement perfectly suits an animal that depends on close social interaction with its own kind. It’s as stable for the sows as it is fluid for the boars, self-regulating in size and organised in such a way as to promote security and lasting companionship.

  In the wild and on the farm

  If pigs are hard-wired to form small groups in the wild, what happens when they’re raised domestically? This is a significant field of interest for Professor Mendl, who carries out his behavioural research with the intention of improving pig welfare in captivity.

  ‘Pigs have an innate tendency to repulse pigs they’re unfamiliar with. So, you often see conflict on farms where pigs are mixed without warning. Olfactory cues will trigger it,’ he says, and once again stresses the central role that smell plays in this world. He also explains that adult boars are always carefully controlled in a domestic environment, and that only growing pigs that have yet to reach sexual maturity are put together in this way. Nevertheless, when anything from 40 to 60 pigs find themselves sharing the same space, it’s inevitable that these animals, with much smaller grouping needs, will undergo some kind of social shakedown.

  ‘They might not react to begin with,’ the Professor explains, ‘but then one will pick up on the presence of a pig that smells unfamiliar. That’s when the skirmishing starts, and it can be between males and females. In reality, they’re just directing aggression towards something that smells different, but a period of fighting can develop that lasts for 30 or 40 minutes, and it can be chaotic.’

  ‘There is data to show that when a fight kicks off, a third pig from the group might intervene to show support,’ he adds, which makes me think of Friday-night tussles as the pubs spill out, but I also appreciate what it says about a pig’s sense of identity as a collective. ‘It finally settles down when they’re exhausted, and at that point you’ll see the new group coalescing.’

  Professor Mendl then describes a post-fight phase that strikes me as rather sweet. ‘They tend to lie down together and become familiar with one another, using cues like smell and vision,’ he says. ‘With the threat gone, the new pig is absorbed into the group.’

  Mix, match and move on

  The fields and paddocks surrounding Wendy’s cottage are dotted with dwelling places for her pigs. Some are built from timber, others from quarry stone and look like they have stood for a century. Then there are the outbuildings, all of them carpeted with straw and home to individual huddles of pigs. While each group has masses of space, and some are free to roam, Wendy still manages the pig population to keep the peace and allow them to live their lives to the fullest. She has a light touch, and carefully considers what pigs are suited to each other in terms of their individual qualities.

  ‘Even if pigs don’t get on during the day,’ she says on the subject of her approach to integration, ‘they’ll eventually sleep together at night. So if I have a new pig, I’ll make a place for it to sleep outside until the others let it into the bedroom.’ She adds that assimilating pigs on neutral ground is the most effective way to minimise conflict. ‘There will always be a little bit of fisticuffs and then it’s fine. But if you put a pig into another pig’s ground, male or female, they will fight for it. They are very territorial.’

  Even as she tells me this, I note for myself that Wendy has a considered eye. Through the window I can see two pigs happily investigating a grass slope beside an outbuilding as if they’ve been tasked as a pair. Does she ever have problems where one pig turns on another?

  ‘Oh, some can be bolshy and pick on everyone,’ she says, ‘but they’re not bad-tempered. I just interpret it as them being top dog and full of themselves. They certainly become more dominant as they mature, but then they get dominated in old age. That’s when I have to keep them with more appropriate pigs,’ she adds, and tells me that her elderly stunt pig, Brad, no longer rules the roost but lives happily with a ‘castrated little kunekune’.

  Protection racket

  From Wendy’s kitchen, beyond the courtyard gate, I can see pigs in small groups. They occupy former stables fronted by farm gates. Piglets scamper about. Some are small enough to fit through the bars and frolic. If there is a system in place, it’s relaxed around the edges. I take this as a reflection of the pigs’ capacity to self-organise as much as Wendy’s trust in the community as a whole.

  ‘They’re very supportive to one another in a crisis,’ she points out when I observe how close-knit they seem. ‘If I need to inject piglets [against disease], I shove the mother out first. Otherwise, as soon as I start picking up the piglets they’ll start squealing and then all the sows will come to the gate. They will not have you hurting or stressing the young. Even if the piglets don’t belong to them, their maternal instinct is very strong. Take the wild boar out in the forests here,’ she says, gesturing towards the window. ‘Dog walkers often find themselves under attack because a boar has become alarmed at their presence and all the others come to their rescue.’

  The reporter in the pigpen

  In some ways, I decided to write a memoir about my experience in raising two supposedly small pigs as a form of therapy. It took me the better part of a year to complete the book, and make sense of the ongoing chaos that dominated our day-to-day lives. During that time, Butch and Roxi went from the size of a pair of shoes to a pair of Labradors. Nine months later, on publication, they had timbered up so significantly that when my editor came to visit he stopped dead in his tracks in front of their enclosure.

  ‘They’re massive,’ he said, as if it might have escaped my attention.

  Relatively speaking, Butch and Roxi were just standard mixed-breed pigs. Still, when the book came out their size became a story. Several newspaper photographers took their picture. Butch and Roxi accepted these visits with good grace. If they were dozing, they’d emerge from their sleeping quarters to greet the visitor. Roxi would be first to approach, grunting and sniffing. Once satisfied, or distracted, by a scattering of pig nuts, the photographer would be free to get the required shot. One even got down in the mud in composing his shot in order to make them look even heftier.

  Maybe that was a turning point for the
pigs, because when the next visitor arrived – a television news reporter – his piece to camera didn’t quite go to plan.

  Having listened to Professor Mendl stress how much pigs are informed by smell, I can only think the reporter carried with him the scent of a pet on his suit trousers – or perhaps a sense of entitlement that rubbed them up the wrong way. For he followed me through the gate, showing no sign of trepidation, but also failing to pay the pigs any attention. Instead, turning his back to them, he faced the camera operator, who had opted to stay on the other side of the fence. At the time, staying out of the enclosure myself, I did wonder if it had been wise to wear such smart attire. In my experience it was impossible to step into their enclosure without getting dirty to some degree. Still, he looked assured on asking the audience to picture the pigs behind him as tiny, toy-like creatures.

  Even before Roxi launched herself at the reporter, knocking him off his feet with an angry bellow, I knew that she was upset. It was an ember in her eye. Just a glint as she swept the ground with her snout and then mounted her attack like an incandescent bull. The poor man practically turned a cartwheel in the air. In horror, I watched his phone and various memory cards slip from his pockets and into the slop, followed by the man himself. I had never witnessed this level of aggression from Roxi before. She could be bad-tempered and grumpy when hungry. This was very different, however, and I scrambled over the fence fearing she might weigh in on the guy as he floundered in the mud, trying to get clear.