The Unexpected Genius of Pigs

by Matt Whyman

  While it might have caused me some plumbing problems, and with her guiding force in mind, I can’t help but feel a little envious of Roxi’s lust for something that had been dropped without care and forgotten about entirely.

  The tool of the trade

  There is nothing quite like touching a pig’s snout with your hand. Unlike a dog’s nose, it’s not wet, nor do you risk having your wrist licked in the process. If anything, the snout feels like it’s made from strong rubber. You might feel warm air on your palm as the pig sniffs and snorts, and you can be sure she’ll be reading far more than you from this moment.

  Then there’s the rim of the snout, which is a crescent of cartilage that’s as firm as it is flexible. It is, in effect, a precision digging tool, and one that every pig instinctively knows how to use to their advantage.

  ‘It’s very sensitive,’ says Professor Mendl, who shares my appreciation of a biological feature capable of fundamentally changing the surrounding landscape. ‘A pig can control the pressure it applies to great effect.’

  Our hands might be more dextrous for lots of different activities, but we can’t beat the snout when it comes to groundwork. This is what the pig is designed to tackle with great effectiveness, and a reason why it’s so unsettling to see them on concrete floors.

  ‘Foraging enriches the pig,’ says the Professor. ‘There isn’t much to do in these kinds of pens,’ he tells me, ‘and there are fewer problems between pigs when they’re occupied.’

  To demonstrate this, I only have to watch a pig do what comes naturally, and answer the call to forage. Whether it’s my lawn, rough land or meadow, she won’t simply trash it. Yes, within a short period of time that space will look like an incident has occurred with a drunk on a rampage in a digger, but the actual process is really quite methodical.

  First, the pig will float its snout over the ground. It’s an assessment guided by smell, and when something grabs its attention, it’ll nudge at the earth as if seeking to wake it up. In this moment, the pig is at its most gentle. It’s effectively finding just the right degree of pressure to apply in order to make an incision.

  And when it finds that sweet spot, the rim of the pig’s snout becomes the leading edge in the dig. I have watched Butch peel a width of turf away with such care and attention that once he’d finished, I could just roll it right back again. Perhaps the only thing missing would be the tips of the grass roots, which can only be some kind of appetiser before the real work begins.

  From here on out, the pig begins what is the heart of the dig. The snout might be the primary implement, but this is an animal that will use both head and shoulders to tackle the task at hand, and does so with as much energy as it can muster.

  ‘There are different digging techniques,’ Professor Mendl tells me. ‘The pig has a very strong and powerful neck, which it often moves upwards or sideways in a shovelling motion. They can also use their teeth to pull or bite through roots,’ he adds, which all comes together to create a powerful excavator on four legs.

  Observing a pig at work, it’s easy to focus on the mess created rather than the progress it’s making. Every time that snout plunges deep, it’ll come back up with a scoop of soil that could go in any direction. And yet while we tut and shake our heads, the pig is moving one step closer to its goal. Even if that means hours of labour, it’ll keep going with the unswerving determination of the metal detectorist.

  Part of the pleasure in watching a pig dig, I think, is in not knowing just what it’s hoping to find. The pig knows precisely, of course, having acquired all the data it needs by drawing the air through its nostrils. It’s this heightened sense of smell, combined with a snout it can deploy like a wrecking ball or with the exactitude of a surgeon’s scalpel, that enables the pig to complete its work without destroying the prize.

  ‘They must be aware of how close they are to something,’ suggests Professor Mendl, ‘because they become more delicate as things get closer.’

  Often their target is a bulb or a root tuber. Then again, I have seen Butch and Roxi unearth discarded tiles or even wartime tins that haven’t seen the light of day for more than 70 years. In every case, however, when that pig lays claim to the object of the dig, it does so with a certain reverence. For it has invested time and effort in reaching this moment, and conjured something tangible from the realm of the senses.

  From a human perspective, there is no way that we could achieve the same thing without a range of equipment and level of conviction that’s hard to match. Yes, the pig will drag its find from its moorings if needs be. If it’s remotely edible – and I include house bricks here – it’ll chomp and grind it into a pulp. While the end result may not be pretty, it’s the act of getting to this moment that we must recognise as the work of a master in an art we cannot hope to match.

  Beyond the boundary

  If there is one thing that a pig will do anything to reach, it’s the acorn. This simple nut from the oak tree, which grows inside a rough tough shell and then drops to the ground in autumn, can serve as an aromatic siren call to both the sow and the boar. The acorn might be odourless to our noses, and not just bitter to taste but potentially toxic, and yet to the pig it’s so irresistible that it might as well have been dropped by angels.

  ‘I lose my pigs when the acorns fall,’ Wendy tells me. We’ve just said goodbye to Cilla, who has accompanied us to the gate. This affectionate kunekune is still grunting away at her keeper, like an old gossip on borrowed time. Wendy and I lean on the gate overlooking the field we’ve just left and the climb beyond the fold. ‘They go AWOL,’ she continues, and gestures towards the trees on the slope. ‘Normally, they won’t go further than the ditch as it’s full of water and steep on the other side, but come autumn, the smell of the acorns draws them. So, once they’ve finished with my oak, they’ll make the crossing. It’s quite difficult for them, but they always manage it.’

  I consider the oak trees on the slope and up along the ridge. They’re some distance away. A kilometre, perhaps, and much of that is a climb. Returning my attention to Cilla, who is now inspecting the ground, I can’t imagine how it must feel to pick up on the scent of something that far off and become so entranced by it. Wendy tells me that Cilla’s acorn-roving days are over. Nevertheless, she talks about her younger pigs as if they’re benign roving gangs, quite literally intent on pushing the boundaries.

  ‘How long are they on that side of the bank?’ I ask.

  ‘Sometimes they can be gone for a couple of days,’ she says, in a way that makes me think Wendy’s as relaxed about it as I would be flustered.

  ‘They can be at it for up to 18 hours at a time, unless they’re completely stuffed, and then sleep for six,’ she tells me. ‘In the evenings, I can usually see them out for the count under the eaves of the trees. They might return to the ditch for a drink, but eventually I have to bring them all the way back.’

  The way Wendy describes things makes me think this has become some kind of annual event she enjoys as much as the pigs. I admire her attitude to the pilgrimage they make to worship at the altar of the oaks. For her, it’s a lovely way to mark the progress of each year, and a rite of passage for each new generation of her pigs that must see them come home enriched by the experience.

  Before the drop

  At the tail end of one summer, a year into their residency with us, Butch and Roxi began to behave quite strangely. Usually, whenever I glanced from the window to check on them, I would see the pair practically open-mine casting in my back garden. Over the course of a few weeks, I would increasingly find them standing stock-still, however, as if posing for a portrait. Even when I went out to check on them, I would have to swing open the gate before they registered my presence.

  ‘Is everything OK?’ I asked one time, because frankly, as a novice pig-keeper, I was beginning to worry that they were suffering from some kind of paralysis.

  Butch and Roxi did at least respond, and I just had to accept that their low grunts meant my
fears were unfounded.

  A few days passed before I saw the bigger picture. It began when I realised they were spending most of the time under the eaves hanging over from next door’s oak. A mature tree, it towered up from behind the fence and formed a canopy that mottled the sun when it fell upon one side of the enclosure. It also dropped a lot of acorns, which didn’t last long on the ground. I’d find Butch and Roxi happily shunting their snouts through the leaves or munching on a find, but then occasionally they appeared to lose all interest. This was when they’d make like statues and go weirdly silent. As I happened to be out there one time when they froze, I also stopped what I was doing to see what I was missing. I set the broom against the fence and listened, hearing only a breeze through the leaves. If I had a snout, I would’ve sniffed as they were. As it was, all I could do was watch and wait.

  Then, with a sigh of wind through the branches, an acorn dropped from above. It had barely hit the earth before Butch was onto it, and when another fell, Roxi followed suit. I observed them doing this quite a bit over the weeks that followed, and am pretty sure I saw Butch catch one in his mouth like popcorn.

  When I share the story with Professor Mendl, he tells me it’s another example of the pig’s ability to learn. Certainly, they were aware that the tree contained treats, but how did they know when one was about to drop? Could they detect a subtle change in the acorn’s smell that told them it was ripe, or was it the rustling of the leaves that informed them of an impending fall? Whatever the case, with Butch and Roxi in residence I had no need to reach for my rake that autumn. Once they’d finished off the acorns, they took care of the fallen leaves as well.

  After the rain

  If I run before work, I head out as the light breaks. It’s a quiet and contemplative time, and if rain has fallen overnight, it can feel refreshing in all sorts of ways. I follow a path through the woodland behind us, catching glimpses of deer and wild rabbit, and then out and around a swathe of meadowland near the river. On my way towards the lane that will take me on a long loop home, I pass a little set-up with three pigs. It’s a lovely, private world for this trio. I’ve never seen the owner, but whoever it is must be up before me because the pigs are often chomping down their breakfast when I see them.

  Things are only different in the wake of a downpour. Then, when the early morning air is fresh and earthy, the pigs ignore their trough completely. Instead, leaving their feed untouched, I find them hard at work in one of the two paddocks they occupy on rotation every few months. Just before the changeover, as I find it now, the two areas are in direct contrast to one another. Grasses and weeds have sprung from the recovering land, while the bare soil in the old paddock has been turned and heaped repeatedly. Nevertheless, the pigs attack the old ground with the same vigour and enthusiasm as they might when finally let loose in the paddock behind the dividing fence.

  There is a word to describe that refreshing smell that arises when rain falls on dry earth, and that is petrichor. It’s caused when plant oil compounds in wet soil are activated and released into the air. The word originates from Greek, and partly refers to the fluid that courses through the veins of the mythological gods. It’s a scent from the ground that even we recognise, and I wonder how intense it must be for the pig. For a moment I watch these three communing with a rejuvenated earth, and then push on, feeling ready to embrace the day.

  No secrets from a pig

  With such a keen sense of smell at its disposal, the pig doesn’t just use its snout in the search for food but to uncover information about its fellow pigs. It’s all about odours, which can help a pig determine everything from the status of a group or an individual.

  A pig is also packed with glands, quite literally from front to back end. From its eyes and mouth to its trotters and genitals, each area provides a specific trove of olfactory information on its state of mind, physical health and sexual receptivity. As a result, every last detail around them is picked up by those highly sensitive snouts and then processed in a heartbeat. In effect, all pigs exist in a personal fog of data. Keeping secrets must be close to impossible. This might be an animal that likes to talk, but the truly intimate communication takes place without a grunt or squeal.

  I wonder what this means for the pig in the maze, having led the dominant new arrival astray to keep it from the food. I can only think it has to move quickly, for the truth must linger in its wake.

  The orchard next door

  ‘It isn’t just for digging,’ Wendy confirms as we swap stories about the adventures our pigs undertake when they follow their snouts. ‘It can literally go around corners.’

  The snout is indeed a miracle of nature. It’s the Swiss pocket knife of the porcine world, with a tool for all eventualities, from assessment and initial probing to wholesale excavation. I am mindful of Professor Mendl’s point that if a reward requires effort, the pig must first decide if it’s worthwhile. Given the multi-purpose potential of its snout, and the fact that it seems pigs consider the effort to be part of the reward, I can’t think of many tasks that Butch and Roxi ever declined. My fencing, for example, tended to keep the enclosure contained. Whenever they broke out, which was no easy job, it was down to something compelling in the air.

  In the case of the orchard next door, more mature and abundant than my little tree, my pigs found every aspect of their snouts put to the test. Given their sensitivity to smell, I have no doubt that Butch and Roxi were aware of the apples when they were little more than buds. A pig will often appear to test the air, and I’m quite sure that’s when something like a Pippin-in-progress would’ve come to their attention. It certainly directed their digging towards that side of the enclosure, but as I had bolstered the fence panels with hardboard following a previous breakout, I saw no cause for concern. As long as they were happily occupied and safely contained then I figured incoming smells just added to the rich tapestry of their lives.

  The fact that I regularly treated them to slices of apples and pears may not have helped them see reason. Both pigs adored this regular treat, and the excitable noises as I approached the gate with a clutch in hand suggested they could smell me coming. What I had to offer them was never enough, however, and so I suppose that aroma from over the fence became all the more alluring.

  To be fair to Butch and Roxi, they did hold off for quite a while. Even when our neighbour’s apples fell at harvest time, they simply grumbled restlessly. Of course, I had no idea at the time that they were even tempted. As a human, I can’t smell fruit from 20 paces. Until, that is, that fruit falls to the ground and proceeds to ferment.

  When I first became aware that next door’s crop had reached a point of decay that my pigs could not resist, I feared something terrible had happened. They hadn’t picked off the overlapping fence slats. With the hardboard in place that really was too much like hard work. Instead, with all the relentless digging, they had undermined two of the fence posts and simply pushed over a six-foot wide panel section. The fact that Roxi was missing told me who was responsible.

  What panicked me was the sight of Butch on the ground beside her escape route. He looked like all the bones in his legs had turned to twigs. A quick check confirmed he wasn’t dead but sound asleep, which is when it slowly dawned on me that I could hear the sound of an agitated pig nearby. Checking Butch one more time, I noticed that his whiskers were coated in a sticky, fibrous substance. I didn’t require a highly tuned nose to tell me that it smelled a little bit like cider. Duly I returned my attention to the broken fencing. Beyond, I noted the gorged remains of many apples past their prime, and realised what had happened here.

  Butch was on the floor because he was intoxicated. It looked like he had ventured out and had a good time but failed to quite make it back to bed. Judging by the noise from next door, it sounded like Roxi had perhaps paced herself a little better. Nevertheless, the squeals and grunts didn’t seem quite right to me, and so I picked my way over the fallen fence panel to investigate.

  I found
my sow amid the apple trees, in a standoff with a root that she had exposed to the sunlight. Poised like a bull in a ring, though swaying slightly, she took one look at me and bellowed.

  Not only was Roxi drunk, it seemed to me that she had shaped up into an angry one.

  It took some persuasion on my part to weave her back over the dividing line, which I achieved using a mint from my pocket and a lot of shoving and pleading. Butch, by this time, had come to his senses, clambered unsteadily to his feet, and together the pair flopped into their sleeping quarters. I didn’t see them again for the rest of the day, which gave me enough time to reinstate the fence and top and turf the dig next door.

  Maybe I was better prepared the following year, with reinforced fencing and posts, because the pigs made no attempt to reach the apples when that rich and heady smell wafted over. Alternatively, as I like to think, they fell in with Professor’s Mendl’s view that pigs are quick learners and had vowed to stay on the wagon after one salutary afternoon.

  7

  The Realm of the Pig

  Come home

  ‘A pig that lives in a wood has got to be the happiest pig of all. It’s cool in the summer. It’s got everything on the floor that they could ever wish for, and there’s a safe feeling in there.’