The Unexpected Genius of Pigs

by Matt Whyman

  But instead of seizing the advantage, Roxi simply stood her ground for a moment. Then, as if satisfied that she had made her feelings known, she metaphorically wound in her neck and rejoined Butch in scouting the ground for stray feed pellets.

  ‘Are you OK?’ I asked uselessly, and offered him my hand.

  Ever the professional, despite being striped in slurry, the reporter clambered to his feet and duly picked up his belongings. Minutes later, standing on the other side of the fence, he recorded a short, less enthusiastic piece to camera while I held his jacket off-camera and wondered if I should offer to dry clean it. The item went out the next day on the evening news. It sparked a few more requests from media agencies. I declined them all. This was Butch and Roxi’s home. They didn’t necessarily live a quiet life, but the episode showed me that pigs are incredibly sensitive to their space. Ultimately, they need to feel that anyone who shares it can be trusted.

  Social security

  ‘Nobody lives alone here,’ says Wendy, when our conversation turns to the instinctive need of a pig to be among its own kind. ‘They’re social creatures. They’re cuddly, they want to be beside other pigs. They need to be able to see and feel and be up against another body. They’re not loners.’

  In the pig world, I first came across Wendy in her role as a voice of truth about minipigs. At a time when the internet was awash with what was effectively cute pictures of standard piglets, she took to task those who were selling a dream of a pocket-sized breed, often as a single pig, without apparent consideration for the long-term consequences. Even now, she is forthright on the subject and does so in the name of animal welfare. It isn’t just a case of raising awareness about their potential size, she stresses. Regardless of how big they might become, a pig needs both space and company.

  ‘They’re not like dogs,’ she says. ‘If they start off being taken from the litter to live alone, they can’t communicate and have to live like something else that isn’t them. That’s so wrong, it goes against their instinct.

  ‘People tell themselves the pig is happy in that situation,’ she adds, and cites cases where minipigs outgrow apartments but have nowhere else to go. ‘In reality, they’ve just adapted to an alien situation.’

  The complete pig

  When Butch and Roxi outgrew our expectations, we were fortunate enough to have the space to accommodate their needs. Their welfare was our priority, even though we hadn’t banked on keeping fully-grown pigs in our back garden. While our research had been lacking, we had at least registered that pigs valued company of their own kind. While it meant double the destruction, our pair proved inseparable. In slumbering together, Butch would arrange himself so that his snout was wedged between Roxi’s flanks. It was a nose-to-tail arrangement that suited them both, despite her noisy flatulence, which I think he secretly found to be a comfort.

  As for their waking hours, once the battle for breakfast was over, both pigs would settle into a routine in which they did everything together. From foraging in the soil to snoozing in the sunshine or breaking through the fence, Butch and Roxi relied on one another for companionship and security.

  In a sense, they complemented each other. Being the larger of the two, Roxi was certainly more assertive. Then again, Butch possessed a greater patience. In autumn, when the apples fell from my little tree, Roxi would be quick to become hysterical if one dropped on the wrong side of the garden fence. Butch, meantime, would simply wait for one of us to investigate the source of the noise, knowing that the apple would be retrieved and split fairly.

  It was in digging that their contrasting talents really came into their own. Where Roxi was skilled in brute force, with a skull that could shovel away soil in great heaps, Butch possessed a more sensitive snout. He would often take over on the last leg of an operation to excavate to new strata of surprises, and then stand back as Roxi took first pickings. They worked very well together. I liked to think it was by design, and that the two had arrived in this world dependent on each other. In truth, pigs are smart creatures that read each other closely through certain senses far sharper than ours, and then figure out how to make a whole greater than the sum of their parts.

  Meet the Swedes

  If pigs use their differing personal qualities to lock together as a group, what influence does their breed bring to bear? The fact is most breeds are selected for the quality of their meat, and behavioural traits are often overlooked. When I ask Wendy for her view, she suggests it’s time to meet her pigs. As we slip on our boots, with the dogs turning circles of excitement around us, she tells me we should start with the top field.

  ‘I have some pigs that I imported from Sweden,’ she says on picking our way up the farm track.

  From her tone, this sounds like something she might not do again.

  ‘What are they like?’

  ‘Well, it might be me projecting, but they are completely different in character to my other pigs.’ Wendy takes the lead as she tells me this. We pass a young man with sea-blue eyes sitting on the verge. He’s wearing overalls and a flat cap fringed by ginger curls, and nods pleasantly at Wendy. I’m guessing he has something to do with the working farm that seems to operate in fields and pastures adjoining her land. Either way, he overhears her mentioning the Swedes and seems quietly amused.

  ‘I thought they would be nice for pig enthusiasts,’ she continues, and explains that she first brought them into the country with a view to breeding them. ‘But I didn’t sell any.’

  ‘Why not?’ I ask.

  Wendy glances over her shoulder, just as we reach the crest of the path. ‘Because they’re appalling!’ she says, and invites me to join her at the gate overlooking a gently sloping apple orchard.

  I pick my way through a puddle and lean on the upper rail. The rainwater has run off the field and pooled in a basin in front of the gate. It forms a kind of moat, which I’m not sorry about when I spot half a dozen creatures with matted, yak-like coats picking up on our presence. They look like little pigs in weird, hairy fat suits, but most striking of all is the fact that there’s something off-message about their manner. None come trotting down to investigate, as I might expect from any pig. These Scandinavian sows just cease their inquisition of the earth and simply stare as if we’re here without first seeking their permission.

  ‘They don’t want affection,’ Wendy tells me, and wearily climbs the gate. ‘They’re not interested in people, they just think they’re superior. And they’ll take you out if you try to go near them when they have piglets,’ she adds before gesturing for me to follow.

  I hesitate for a moment. Wendy is already sloshing through the muddy soup towards higher ground.

  ‘Do they have piglets?’ I ask after her, but I think she chooses not to hear me.

  By now, the Swedish pigs have started honking. I realise I am investing human qualities in the noise, but they sound totally affronted. Feeling like I should have brought a gift or something, I follow Wendy over the gate and into their field. As I negotiate the water, she calls out, ‘Come, PIG!’ in a shrill voice. In response, the honking becomes more animated and several of these squat and dark wretches begin to gravitate towards her. They don’t exactly hurry, however – as Butch and Roxi might have done on the assumption that I had something for them to eat – and indeed pull up at some distance from us.

  ‘They seem wary,’ I say, struck at the same time by their prominently upturned snouts and glimpse of tombstone teeth underneath. ‘And kind of visually challenging,’ I add under my breath.

  ‘The girls are very timid,’ says Wendy, and begins to name them in turn. ‘That’s Malm. Over there is Ektorp …’

  I glance at Wendy side-on. The names sound familiar. In fact, I’m pretty sure that one of the pigs shares a name with my sofa.

  ‘Ikea?’ I ask.

  Wendy nods as if she had no other choice.

  ‘Lowie is the only one who’s sure to come and see me,’ she says, looking around, and then her face lights up. ‘He
re he comes …’

  I follow Wendy’s line of sight. Across the orchard, huffing and puffing as he negotiates a terrain as crumpled as a bedsheet, a shaggy off-white boar approaches us. He’s only slightly larger than the girls, which isn’t saying much, and looks like he’s wearing a lion costume tailor-made for him.

  ‘Lowie has small-man syndrome,’ says Wendy, and calls the pig one more time. ‘I handled him a lot when he was young, but then he got boarish and tried to dominate me. He just wasn’t afraid at all.’

  By now, Lowie has begun to make a weird clashing sound. He’s moving his jaws, I realise, for the tusks so characteristic of his gender are bobbing up and down and I can see a cluster of front teeth.

  ‘Is he chomping?’ I ask.

  ‘And marking his territory,’ says Wendy as the boar rubs himself against a tree. ‘Protecting his girls, though they’re all spayed so he can’t cause trouble.’

  The sows, meanwhile, are gawping at us in undisguised antipathy. Having watched us spoil their party, it’s as if they’re waiting for Lowie to take us to task. While I stay quite still, just in case the boar showcases a sudden temper, Wendy continues to coo at him with one hand outstretched. Slowly but surely, to what sounds like knives sharpening inside his mouth, Lowie gravitates towards her. He’s beginning to froth at the corners of his jaw, I realise, but Wendy assures me he’s just chomping on his molars to sound intimidating. At her feet now, the little pig peers up at Wendy. All of a sudden, I see a look in his eye like a little boy in need of some attention, which is exactly what she delivers in the form of a scratch behind the ears.

  ‘I can probably give him a tummy rub,’ says Wendy as the sound of grinding teeth and huffing turns to squeaks of joy, ‘but they are just so suspicious.’

  I glance at the girls. I’m not sure trust is the issue here. They just look as if they’re witnessing a scene of wholesale treachery by the boar whose one job it is to protect them. Unlike any pigs I’ve come across before, they keep a distance between us as if any kind of contact could prove ruinous. Wendy tells me that they don’t show such disdain for other pigs, which further marks them out as different from any other breed she’s known.

  ‘Can you mix them? I ask.

  Wendy chuckles, which is enough to give Lowie a start.

  ‘I had to remove the Swedes from the English pigs,’ she says. ‘They were stroppy and extremely sexually orientated. In season, the Swedish girls would try to mount the British sows. They put up with it, but I could see that trouble was in store. So now they’re up here, and seem much happier among their own kind.’ Wendy draws my attention to the fact that the Scandinavian sows sport hairless stripes along their upper flanks. ‘That’s where the girls have been riding each other,’ she says. ‘They’ve worn away the bristles.’

  ‘Oh,’ I say, and now that’s all I can see.

  ‘My conscience wouldn’t allow me to sell the Swedes,’ she adds. ‘You can’t offer pigs like this to people!’

  Watching Wendy indulge an inherently cautious little boar, as his harem look on in utter disbelief, I wonder if secretly, she’s content to keep them all to herself. The Swedes are certainly a breed unto themselves, but despite the challenges they present there is a bond between them that’s as unique as it is unbreakable. Even when we turn for the gate, leaving the girls to glower at Lowie, it’s clear they’ll quickly forgive him in the name of group harmony.

  For pigs of any kind, no matter what their number, gender, personality or the characteristics inherent to their breed, there is nothing more important than family. This, in effect, forms the collective heart and soul of their lives, and allows the character of each and every pig to shine.

  5

  The Language of Pigs

  Rocky

  ‘He was the first piglet that I ever kept from a litter,’ says Wendy as we amble down from the orchard. ‘Rocky had free run of the yard, and never ever got shut in. He was huge – a whopper, but a darling – and belonged to my young son. If something had happened at school that upset him, he would come home and talk to Rocky. They were very close. And then sometimes Rocky would talk to me.’

  She points out a nearby track and tells me that the pig would often take himself there to bask in the sun. ‘If I spoke to him, he would immediately answer. I’d say, “Oh, Rocky,” and he would honk, and we would have a conversation. I could lie down beside him and have a cuddle and he would grunt to me.’

  ‘Was he talking to you?’ I ask.

  ‘Oh, definitely,’ she says, with such a note of sadness that it’s clear he has moved on. ‘I got terribly attached to him.’

  Conversations with a pig

  Wendy talks about each and every one of her pigs as a personal friend. Even so, she is quite realistic in recognising that they speak a very different language. If she humanises her pigs in any way, she’s quick to spell that out, which I read as a mark of healthy respect for an animal she cherishes dearly. Nevertheless, the connection she describes through verbal contact is clearly one that brings pig and keeper closer together.

  ‘You can invest what you want in the grunt,’ she says, well aware that her conversation with Rocky was based on sounds and not subject – a simple call and response. And yet she is wholly convinced that when pigs communicate with each other they do so in a way that is as rich in meaning as it is endless. ‘Oh, they are always talking to each other here,’ she says breezily. ‘It never stops, and that includes the piglets. There is no time when you can’t hear them, apart from at night when they’re asleep. On farms where they might be kept apart you can still hear them trying to talk to each other, which is another reason why it’s so wrong to keep pigs alone.’

  ‘I am here’

  A pig is constantly switched on to her surroundings. Even when she’s flopped out in the sunshine, that snout continues to work. She samples the air, assessing smells as a means of monitoring the world around her. In the same way, her ears never rest. Whether naturally pricked or flopped over her eyes, they flex and twitch as she listens to her fellow pigs grunt and honk, and responds in kind.

  ‘They’re contact calling,’ says Professor Mike Mendl, in explaining how the group are in constant communication as a means of cohesion. ‘It probably serves some sort of function, as if to say “I am here” and “Everything is OK”. In particular, you might hear this when a group of pigs are moving through a wood as they forage. It could indicate that they’re happy and enjoying the activity, or simply stating where they are.’

  As soon as the Professor explains this to me, I begin to think about pigs in an entirely different light. I had always assumed that the low-level grunts and honks that accompany their activities were meaningless. To my ear, it was just noise for its own sake as a pig loses itself in a world of digging, foraging, dozing and eating. Now, it seemed more like a complex social network based on sounds. With every member contributing updates, each pig is informed of individual activities, their whereabouts and the status of the group as a whole.

  In the same way that birds flock together or fish swim in schools, every pig in a group is closely connected to the other. The pattern might not be as apparent, graceful or striking as the murmuration of starlings, but at the core of the porcine collective is the same intensity of communication that goes beyond our understanding. What might seem like a basic oink could be rich in information, determined by frequency, tone, pitch and volume. As Professor Mendl suggests, a group of pigs is known as a sounder for good reason.

  ‘We can’t be sure if their calls might reflect being in a positive state, or if they’re informing each other or the boss, or something else,’ he points out when we talk about research into the number of different vocalisations a pig might possess. ‘Nobody knows for certain, but if a group member becomes alarmed, it will often let out a bark sound, which seems to alert the others that there may be danger around.’

  Sound and fury

  To human ears, there are few animal noises more urgent and unsettling than a
pig’s squeal. It’s savage, monstrous, sometimes deafening, and can draw out the hairs on the back of the neck. Such was the intensity of her delivery that in order to employ her vocal chords, Roxi’s flanks would contract like some demonic living accordion. In broad terms, pigs squeal when they’re alarmed, in pain, agitated or even excited. It could be anything from a cry for help, an expression of joy, or a defence mechanism by a largely defenceless creature.

  Whatever the true meaning, the intention of a squeal is clear: that pig wishes to make its presence known.

  I am here. Notice me.

  Where there is hope …

  The provision of shelter, food and water is all part of the deal when it comes to being a domesticated animal. In general, a pig in an enclosure can mark out its day by mealtimes. Technically, there is no need to summon food, and yet in groups they tend to precede its arrival with an apocalyptic din.

  Having experienced this first-hand, it comes as some comfort when I return to the farm buildings with Wendy and she points out what was once a holiday let. ‘I used to have to creep out to feed the pigs before they woke the place up,’ she tells me, sounding far more good-humoured about it than I ever did. ‘Some breeds are noisier than others,’ she adds. ‘The Tamworths, in particular, never shut up.’

  ‘It would be nice if they just honked a bit when they were hungry,’ I grumble. ‘My pigs kicked off like they’d just woken up to a murder scene.’

  Wendy smiles ruefully.

  ‘I milk my goats first thing in the morning now,’ she says, ‘but as soon as I open up the doors to where I keep the buckets, the pigs start screaming. They know the feed is stored in there as well, you see?’