It’s a horse’s life for me, says piglet
Jun 29 2005
Robin Turner, Western Mail
A PIGLET who escaped from a farm where he was destined for the slaughterhouse is living a new life as a horse.
The three-month-old Common White made a run for it when a load of piglets were being unloaded from the back of a lorry into a field in Mid Wales.
The animal survived for six weeks in the wild, living off the land around the Llandeilo area.
Then two weeks ago the exhausted and painfully thin piglet wandered into the Lluest Horse and Pony Trust, a haven for abandoned or unwanted horses at Llanddeusant.
Manager Stephanie Banks
said, “The piglet was so hungry when he first arrived he was eating everything so we called him Mr Greedy.”
In the past two weeks, the piglet has bonded with the ponies and horses at the sanctuary and now runs and gambols alongside them. He has also made friends with a duck and a donkey.
Stephanie said, “It’s a really touching sight to see the ponies standing over Mr Greedy when he sleeps. It’s almost as if they are guarding him.”
Shortly after Mr Greedy arrived at Lluest, based around eight miles from Llandeilo, the farmer arrived at the sanctuary. But it was decided as the piglet had been so determined to survive he should continue living with the horses.
Stephanie said, “There is no doubt Mr Greedy would have been heading for the freezer. Obviously he could not have known that but some instinct told him to run when the back of the lorry went down.
“No one knows how he survived in the wild but he’s found a real home now.
“It’s a delight to see him running and trying to jump over things with the horses and he’s become quite an attraction.
“The horses and particularly the ponies love him. We have to get him properly registered now and hopefully he’ll have a long and happy life with us here.”
Mr Greedy’s escape from the slaughter house is reminiscent of the story of the Tamworth Two.
They were two pigs, later named Butch and Sundance, who ran off from an abattoir lorry in Tamworth in 1998. A huge media campaign led to the animals, who were eventually recaptured, living in a sheltered home for animals.
There are also echoes of Mr Greedy’s story in the 1995 box office hit Babe, about a pig who believed it was a sheepdog.
