The Unexpected Genius of Pigs

by Matt Whyman

  Bath time

  ‘People say pigs don’t mind mud, but I hate to see a pig wandering through belly-deep. They are very hardy, but I really don’t think they like it.’

  Wendy is replying to my story of the challenges we faced at the foot of our garden. In a way, I am glad to be on the same wavelength with someone like her when it comes to the issue of pig welfare. Come what may Butch and Roxi would greet each day with gusto. While they showed no sign of discontent, I just wasn’t happy with the quality of the ground beneath their trotters.

  ‘The only time they really like it is in the summer,’ she continues. ‘They don’t just need water when it’s hot, they actually need mud.’

  It’s hard to argue that pigs don’t like mess when you see one in a wallow. The sight of what appears to be a mud monster blissfully flopping around does undermine the argument somewhat. In this case, however, the action serves a vital function.

  ‘Pigs have no sweat glands apart from the snout,’ explains Professor Mendl. ‘They’ll take advantage of wet mud and coat themselves in it because the moisture evaporates slowly, which helps them to keep cool.’

  As well as temperature regulation, it’s believed that pigs also turn to mud as a means of lice and parasite control. Having watched my pigs flop into the slop, I also buy into the theory that a nice mud bath is good for their wellbeing. Since Roman times we have coated ourselves in the stuff as a means of healing skin conditions and easing joint pains. While pigs don’t pay good money for the same treatment, I like to think they appreciate the way it can help to relax the mind and soothe the soul. When I suggest this to Wendy, she doesn’t laugh me off her land.

  ‘My pigs go down into the ditch and make a pool when it’s warm,’ she says. ‘They’ll just keep digging and tipping water to create a mess, but it’s important to them.’

  ‘Butch and Roxi used to stamp on their water bowl until it flipped,’ I tell her. ‘I never had a chance to create a wallow for them with a hosepipe.’

  I realise I have just made this sound like a lifelong ambition. Wendy tells me pigs are smart enough to take care of it themselves.

  ‘They’re also very clever in the way they coat the important places,’ she says. ‘Firstly, they’ll put their noses in it. Next, they’ll cover their face to protect against sunburn. Then they do their bits. They rub their bum and tail in the mud and get it down between their buttocks.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Well, it’s hairless and the sun gets to it,’ she says. ‘Whether they’re male or female, they’ll finish by doing their teats, and then, once they’ve finished all that, they just flounder like a fish.’

  I burst out laughing, but not before Wendy. Watching a pig in a wallow is undoubtedly a comical sight, but also rather joyous. As a foraging animal that can happily dig and root for up to 18 hours a day, it’s come to accept that mud is part and parcel of its life. It might not like too much, and yet the pig recognises how soil mixed with water contains properties that are beneficial to its health and wellbeing. It’s more effective than a cold bath on a hot day and clearly a lot more fun.

  8

  The Sow and the Boar

  The heat is on

  For three weeks at a stretch, Roxi could be a lovely pig. She liked her routine, and whenever I joined her and Butch in the enclosure she would gravitate towards me with a cheery grunt. Yes, she could be boisterous with Butch, who paled in size compared to this huffing pink and splotched-black beast, but essentially she was a sweet-natured sow with a fondness for peaches, an uninhibited attitude to flatulence and a habit of nudging my wellington boots for attention.

  And yet, every 21 days, a violent transformation would take place that rivalled Dr Jekyll’s switch to Mr Hyde. It could begin at any time, and was marked by a vocal incantation from the enclosure that pretty much silenced the birds in the trees. The first time I heard it from inside the house, I rushed to the window thinking I might need to make an emergency vet callout. Roxi sounded deeply distressed, and yet her squeals were underpinned by something close to fury. When I peered out, I found myself facing a sow who had lifted her front trotters onto the fence as if waiting for my full attention. Whether she saw me or just sensed my presence, she then bellowed at me with such force that the windowpane vibrated.

  On hurrying outside, my concern for Roxi turned to bewilderment. She didn’t appear to be sick or in pain, but was just bloody angry about something. I tried talking to her. My sow promptly turned full circle and thrust her snout into the soil so aggressively that she caused a volley of soil to break over me. I took a step away, shielding myself from the raining earth, and stared at her in shock. Roxi simply planted her trotters squarely in the ground and glared at me. It was then I noticed that she carried a strong smell with her. I had grown to quite like their natural aroma – a sweet and earthy smell – but at that moment it was overpowering. It was then, as she appeared to give up on me, that I noticed something physically different in my pig. It wasn’t just her manner but the folds between her rear legs that had changed beyond recognition.

  Just then, drawn by the din, Emma appeared alongside me. I looked at her side-on, and then back at the focus of my attention.

  ‘Is that her vulva?’ I asked.

  This time, it was my wife’s turn to give me a look. It was withering to begin with, but when she glanced back at the pig’s rear some concern came into her expression.

  ‘It looks a little swollen,’ she said, which was an understatement, and then recoiled with me as Roxi sucked the air into her lungs and screeched.

  ‘Where is Butch?’ Emma asked next.

  Such was the scene our sow was creating that I had completely forgotten about her companion. I glanced around the enclosure, saw no sign of him, and then registered a pair of eyes peering at me through the straw in their sleeping quarters.

  ‘There,’ I said, drawing Emma’s attention to the hatch in the side of the shed. ‘Hiding under the covers.’

  It was our friendly local pig-keeper that informed us that Roxi wasn’t dying but simply at the fertile phase in her monthly cycle. It came as a relief, but also quite a shock at such a sea change in her behaviour. Nothing would settle her for several days and nights, which is about the same period Butch spent hiding from her. Then, as rapidly as she came on heat, Roxi returned to her normal casual nature. One minute she was raging at the branches of the oak tree, looking hot and bothered and at war with the world around her, the next she was back to digging contentedly with her soulmate at her side.

  When I tell Professor Mendl about what turned out to be a regular event, he has just one question for me: ‘Did the boar ever try to mount her?’

  ‘There wasn’t much he could’ve done in that department,’ I say, and do that sad snipping gesture that all men seem to understand.

  ‘Well, then she was calling for a mate,’ says the Professor.

  As he tells me about the profound hormonal changes that the female pig undergoes during the ovulation period, having reached sexual maturity from between three to 12 months of age, I consider whether Roxi was directing all that anger and frustration at me for failing to deliver her a suitor that could meet her needs. The Professor tells me that the agitated state I described, along with pricked ears and a tendency to stand rigidly as an indication of sexual receptivity, is not unusual for a young sow in heat. Still, I can’t help wondering if Roxi might have improved her pulling potential had she just calmed down a bit. Then I remind myself that I am interpreting her behaviour through a human filter. Granted, Butch made himself scarce just as soon as she kicked off, but what sounded like tormented snorts and squeals to me was in reality the sound of a pig possessed by the need to perform a basic reproductive function. I imagine an intact boar would’ve picked up on the change in her perfume and the restless clamouring and reacted like a giant sexy acorn had just materialised especially for him.

  According to Professor Mendl, it’s a clear window of opportunity that the boar can’t affor
d to ignore. ‘If he shows an interest in a sow and she’s not in oestrus, she can be quite irritable,’ he tells me, which leaves me thinking I did Butch a favour by putting him out to pasture rather than potentially exposing him to even greater wrath when Roxi wasn’t in the mood.

  Let’s hear it for the boars

  As a youngster, staying on the Somerset Levels with my grandparents, I once found myself surrounded by a herd of cattle. I was following a footpath across a field at the time. My grandfather had entrusted me to take his two beloved Labradors for a walk, which was a big deal for an eight-year-old, though I’m sure he had probably dispatched them to look after me.

  Until then, cows had never bothered me. I barely registered them as I followed the dogs. Across the field, the herd had spread out so wide they didn’t even look like a collective. I don’t know what caused them to turn on me, but all of a sudden I found them closing in. First, at a saunter, and then at a trot that quickly turned to thunder.

  It was, perhaps, my first experience of running as hard as my legs would carry me. Even the dogs took off for a safe distance before rounding back to flank me to the stile. I’m not sure my grandfather really believed me, and no doubt in retelling the story I escalated the drama so I didn’t look cowardly in his eyes. Whatever the case, I have always been wary of crossing fields containing livestock, even though I do it on a regular basis as a runner. I’ll keep one eye on the cows, and if there’s a bull warning I just pick up my pace and hope for the best. Sheep tend to scatter, and so it’s not that bad, but pigs are in a class of their own.

  Out running, I have yet to encounter pigs that occupy land with a public right of way. Farmers tend to keep them away from those spaces, simply because pigs can be wary of strangers, behave unpredictably if approached, and if a sow is with her young, regard you as a threat. However, there is a stretch I run every now and then that sometimes takes me across a paddock with a boar. He’s kept adjacent to a contained field of sows, which allows him to talk and appreciate their presence. The ground itself is rutted and boggy, which is no surprise given the occupant’s favourite pastime, but that’s not the reason why I generally avoid that field and choose the long way round.

  I have no doubt that part of my reluctance is down to my close encounter with livestock as a boy. I don’t want to experience that fear again, in which for one heart-stopping moment I am rooted to the spot in an expanse so big it feels like there’s no escape. At the same time, the boar in that field is a big old beast. Everything about his physical make-up looks like it has conspired to unsettle me. From the beady eyes to the prehistoric tusks, that bat-like snout and a squeal that could wake the dead, it’s just not an animal I wish to take for granted. Then there’s his sheer size. He’s all bristles and muscle mass, and was surprisingly fleet-footed the one time I thought I should overcome my anxieties. All he did was turn his great head in my direction and then reposition himself square on. That was enough for me to rethink my decision and leave him well alone.

  I have no doubt that boar was probably quite relaxed about runners and ramblers crossing his kingdom. I don’t suppose he would’ve been placed in that field had there been any cause for concern. Nevertheless, there is something incredibly powerful about his aura. He’s part beast and part bodyguard, quite possibly there to protect his harem from competition. Whether or not I represent such a threat, I’m simply not prepared to find out. In some ways, he intimidates me more than the bull. While both exist to serve and protect, I just feel that when a bull sees red, he fully submits to instinct. It’s a tunnel vision of rage, and I wouldn’t care to be in silhouette at the end, but somehow a boar in full flight strikes me as being smarter than that. One look in his eyes will tell you that he’s thinking in complex ways just as we do, and I’d be reluctant to discover that he’s two steps ahead of me.

  Herbie

  The world surrounding Wendy on her farm is profoundly peaceful. From the courtyard across the fields and into the woodland, her pigs are free to dig and play, bask, sleep and contentedly rear their young. Chickens scratch in the dirt, while her three dogs rush from one hole to another as if pursuing some challenge we can never understand. She has worked hard to create a life here, where everybody gets on, and much of this is down to her skill and sensitivity towards managing the boars. Wendy also freely admits there have been times when they have tested her.

  ‘Herbie was a sweetie,’ she says of one of her early pigs. ‘He was a kunekune, renowned for their temperament, and without doubt one of the kindest and softest of creatures. I used to move him around with a board and stick, but I didn’t have to touch him, I just steered him along. One winter morning, we were ambling along when suddenly he turned and whacked me so hard that I fell. I was wearing a ski suit as it was so cold, and he grabbed me by the trouser leg. Then he tried to shake me. Well, I panicked, broke free and ran. From a distance I watched Herbie stomp into the yard, and quickly crossed to shut the gate on him.

  ‘What I really needed to do was get him into his stable to cool off because he was looking very angry, but I was frightened,’ she says, sounding pained, as if this is the last emotion any pig-keeper wants to experience. ‘So, I collected the board and climbed into the yard with him, and straight away he went for me. I’d parked a trailer and a truck in the yard at the time, and quickly I jumped the draw bar between the two to get away from him. Herbie just shot around the back of the trailer to cut me off.’

  Wendy stops there to let me digest the implication of such forward thinking. ‘I actually thought he was out to get me,’ she says.

  ‘What caused him to turn on you?’ I ask.

  Wendy looks like she has given this a lot of thought over the years. It’s as if this incident reminds her that boars have the potential to be deeply dangerous, even if it is a rare event.

  ‘The only thing I can think is that maybe he could smell another boar on the board,’ she says.

  We move on through the farm. If Wendy’s tale has left me feeling a little cautious about male pigs, she shows no such sign with the next pair that we meet. I can’t imagine having to deal with a boar as angry as Herbie, which only heightens my respect for her. Then again, the two she introduces me to don’t look like they could fight their way out of a paper bag.

  The lesser boar

  Neither size nor age nor swaggering good looks is on the side of these guys, though I’m not sure either of them got the memo. The two whiskery beasts in the stable before me adopt a posture that says don’t mess, and that endears me to them more immediately than their genuinely alpha counterparts.

  ‘This one is a quarter Meishan,’ says Wendy, as we say hello to one clay-coloured fellow with wrinkled skin and floppy ears. ‘He was a bit of a mistake,’ she adds, having lowered her voice in admitting what must have been an unusual lapse in her seriously impressive livestock management skills. The part Meishan registers my presence with a baritone grunt. Had I not laid eyes on this lardy chap on little legs, I would’ve found it quite unsettling, the kind of thing you expect to hear in a crowded pub when you accidentally knock into a biker with a pint in his hand.

  Wendy draws my attention to the pig with even more impressive skin folds. This one has a snout that looks like he’s been voluntarily chasing brick walls, and he joins in with the huffing and puffing. At the same time, he squares up to us in what looks to me like a stance of fight and not flight. Ignoring the growing air of aggression, Wendy reaches through the gate to ruffle the Meishan under the chin.

  ‘He’s in here with his little fat friend,’ she says cheerily, which also somehow tells these prickly fellows who’s in charge.

  In a world in which the matrilineal group has room for just one dominant adult male, where does that leave the beta boars like Butch and the macho duo that fail to follow through with anything but submissive squeaks when Wendy pets them?

  ‘In their natural environments, some boars may never have a harem or father offspring because others are in charge,’ says Professor Me
ndl, which leaves me feeling a bit sad. ‘In the context of competing for females, however, they are all very aggressive, as that is their ultimate aim. But otherwise they are fairly docile and certainly not aggressive towards sows.’

  This chimes with Butch’s relationship with Roxi. Regardless of their genetic background and family line, which remained a mystery to us, our castrated boar figured out his place as her companion. Like any long-standing couple, their character and personalities found a way to complement each other, but it was Butch, I think, who changed to fit with his dominant partner. She quite clearly wore the trousers in their relationship, and could be more emotional if things didn’t go her way. In response, Butch set aside any calling to lead the way and learned to be a solid little soulmate for her. Whenever Roxi threw a temper tantrum because she fancied an early supper, he never once got caught up in the moment. Instead, from a safe distance, he remained quite calm and in due course that always brought her back to earth. Of course, they had their squabbles – usually when Roxi woke up to the fact that Butch had stolen a march over her on breakfast – but not once did Butch allow it to become a grudge. He was her rock in the enclosure and her comfort pillow in the sleeping quarters, with no need to play the alpha for a sow that was twice his size.

  As a measure of his maleness, Butch began to go prematurely bald on top. He was only two at the time, which might’ve been quite natural for pigs but certainly seemed harsh to me. As a youngster, his bristles were as dark and glistening as a raven’s wing. Within the first 18 months, the first strands of grey began to appear around his eyes and snout, and then shortly after that he started losing it on his crown. On oiling his smooth pate one day, with just a tuft of brush left over each ear, I even wondered if he might feel more confident with a toupee. According to our pig-keeping friend down the lane, Butch was probably just ‘blowing his coat’, like a dog might shed on a seasonal basis. It was, he believed, a pot-bellied pig thing, so we weren’t so concerned when Butch also lost it along the length of his back.While that regrew a short while later, his dome stayed defiantly bristle-free. In body, he became our little old man, but I also think as a look it reinforced the fact that his soul was wise beyond his years.