Meet the girls: Flora, Fauna and Fabulous

Chrys McLaren’s experience caring for three pigs during lockdown 

One afternoon, having been to the wonderful and friendly community shop near where I live in Cornwall, I was walking along the lane and saw a Jack Russell terrier. The dog was running after three rather round dogs ahead. On closer inspection, and to my absolute delight, I realised that they were in fact three pigs! 

I later learned that the pigs lived next door to a pub and had broken from their steep and muddy field, infuriating many villagers. Pigs have a persistent and willful nature and are excellent escape artists! 

I helped to move the pigs back down the street and up the garden to their enclosure, and was given a great cup of coffee for my trouble. I got chatting to the people who kept the pigs, and I asked if they could come and live in my field for a while, where they would be more secure and also able to clear some of the long grass. To my delight, the family agreed. 

Arrival day 

I arranged for fencing and shelter to be built in time for the pigs’ arrival. The day of their transfer was an entertainment to put it politely. I learned that pigs do not like walking downhill. My friend pointed out that their small legs and the weight behind them makes it difficult. 

I named these three seriously gorgeous sows Flora, Fauna and Fabulous – but more commonly referred to them as ‘the girls’. 

I sought advice about bedding. The towny part of me meant I didn’t realise one needed to provide straw rather than hay. The girls enjoyed their bed of hay – but for eating, rather than sleeping on. I learned that pigs clean their beds out after a few days – they are the cleanest animals you can find in a farmyard. 

It seems that very little could keep the pigs in their enclosure, except for electric fencing, and my lawns (never perfect, but smooth at least) were soon, shall we say, re-arranged by them. The girls greatly enjoyed eating the bluebell bulbs, as roots are their favourite treats and they would actually rather snout up food from underground than eating it from the surface. 

Lockdown companions 

As Covid hit, I realised that the girls couldn’t have come at a better time. I found the best company in them, and I learned so much from their friendship. 

I became closely acquainted with their personalities. Fabulous is chilled, cool, relaxed and simply wants to have a fuss and a scratch. She will flop over onto her side very easily for a tummy tickle. Flora is the middle child and is very naughty – she will grab the hose and spray me and her sisters. When the electric fence is switched off, she will lean over it to chew the wood fence.  

Fauna is the smallest and can sometimes be bullied by her bigger sisters. However, my sympathies for her reduced the more time I spent with them, as Fauna is often very annoying to her siblings. Fab and Flora could be lying asleep and Fauna will wake them up and force herself in for a cuddle. 

The girls loved to run and play, and would bark like dogs. When Flora was knocked over in the joviality, Fab would snout her back onto her feet so she could rejoin the game. They love playing with sticks, either to fetch or scratch themselves against, and have also enjoyed playing with empty cardboard boxes.  

When I went and sat on the bench in their field, all three of them would come up to me for a scratch. Sometimes they would send my legs flying – they are very large and much stronger than me! This is a joy and a delight, and they would often make me laugh out loud with their funny behaviours. 

After about ten months, the girls’ previous family said to me that they would be ‘in the freezer soon’. I couldn’t bear to imagine this happening, and offered to pay the family so that I could keep them safe. I was prepared for a legal battle, but it didn’t come to that as I was permitted to buy their freedom. 

A forever home 

Sadly, my field proved unsuitable for the girls to live in long-term. After a particularly wet few months, the field transformed into a mud bath and I decided it would be best for them to move to a sanctuary. I found the most amazing vegan community in Cornwall for them to move to, where they have two large areas of woodland and more folks to be friends with than me. 

If I hadn’t been able to take the girls in, they would be dead by now. They would have been killed at about eight or nine months old, but they can and hopefully will now live out their full natural lifespan of 15–20 years, as they deserve to do so. 

By Chrys McLaren