Farm of the Week: Little bit of honesty pays in the craze for mini-pigs

HELEN ROUTLEDGE would love to sell you a 'micro-pig' but only after explaining that really and truly, there ain't no such animal.

She prefers the description mini-pigs, although she does include a micro reference on her website because that is what her potential customers are often searching for.

She gets a lot more inquiries than sales because she insists on telling the truth. Which is, that what people get when they buy a 'micro-pig' is essentially just a pig. If the dealer is genuine, it will have been selectively bred to be smaller than average. But nobody can guarantee it will not be an exception. And at best, small is going to mean mini rather than micro.

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The media have created unrealistic expectations by falling for pictures of piglets which will fit in the palm of a hand, says Mrs Routledge.

"I get calls from people who think they are going to buy something like a chihuahua."

You do get piglets that tiny. She gets piglets that tiny. But like all babies, they grow up. And the smallest of pigs, fully grown, is going to be built a bit more like a Staffordshire bull terrier at best.

The micro-pigs craze goes back to the showbiz fashion for Vietnamese pot-bellied pigs as a quirky alternative to a dog or a cat. George Clooney famously had one from 1988 until its death in 2006. But that one, Max, weighed 300 lbs fully grown. The black Vietnamese pigs became popular because they are generally much smaller than the typical British farm pig would be if allowed to reach full size – which it rarely is, unless wanted for breeding. Full maturity takes two or three years.

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Using Vietnamese crosses and various other mixtures, to add different colours and characters, there has been a race on to produce smaller and cuter pet possibilities. Paris Hilton, even more famously than George Clooney, bought a 'micropig' a year ago. The Yorkshire Post did put in an inquiry to her agents, to ask how big it now is, but no reply has yet been forthcoming – watch this space.

However, quite a lot of lower-profile customers have apparently been disappointed. The Daily Telegraph recently reported on a Hampshire woman who bought her pet, Pigwig, when he was "big as a chick" and had to move him out when he "hit eight stone and ripped a radiator off a wall".

The micro-pig, in short, is still a work in progress. There is no established definition and no guarantee that anything labelled as one will remain even mini in dimensions. However, unscrupulous dealers are happy to feed the fantasy – delivering petite piglets and being unavailable when they turn into truculent teenagers. The piratical side of the business makes Mrs Routledge and her husband, Dave, reluctant to put their full address in the paper. They have heard too many stories of rustling.

However, we settle on saying Danbec Farm is between Howden and Hull, and open to genuine callers – see www.ukminipigs.co.uk, call 07923 524887 or email [email protected]/

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The farm is a neat smallholding they bought 13 years ago. Mr Routledge is an agricultural machinery engineer and his wife is from a farming background. A couple of years after moving in, they installed a dozen Large White sows in their sheds and bred for the butcher for five years, while their two children, now 11 and 13, were still small.

"We never made any money at all," sums up Mr Routledge. "This was when you were doing well if you got 34 for a 30-kilo or 40-kilo pig."

By the end, the Routledges had eaten enough pork to put them off the meat for life. Feed prices went through the roof and they threw in the towel.

But they had a sideline in chocolate Labradors, which they kept up. Producing pet pigs seemed like a good way of combining two strands of experience and they started buying stock a little over a year ago – looking for pigs with a history of smallness.

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Their latest boar, Jet, nine months old, is a dinky Vietnamese cross who sometimes needs a set of steps to do his duty. Luckily, a sow in heat is usually co-operative. They have seven breeding sows, representing a whole range of influences, but mostly including some Vietnamese. There is also a fair amount of Gloucestershire Old Spot influence because the markings are popular.

They have sold about 20 piglets so far and have seven waiting for homes. The piglets sell for between 250 and 600, depending on markings and mini-ness. Sows are more popular than boars but all the boars to be sold are castrated at two weeks, to avoid the tendencies to aggression and smelliness which can make them awkward companions.

You would not kindly keep a pig indoors all the time but they can be house-trained, as easily as a dog, according to the Routledges – even taught to sit and so on.

On the other hand, they will be quick to learn to open your fridge, too. The Routledges have a paddock for theirs to run in through the summer, with a night ark, and roomy pens for the winter, where different sizes and ages mingle quite happily, according to their own pecking order, in pleasant contrast to the vicious scrums of an intensive pork farm. They eat standard pellets and cost about 2 a week each to feed. As part of her honesty policy, Mrs Routledge always points out pigs are herd animals and happier if they are going to live with at least one other. In short, she would prefer to sell you at least two.

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The Routledges also sell a few pygmy goats, from a small flock which started with a couple of pets for the children.

A pygmy goat is an ancient strain and can be relied on to reproduce its smallness. They live in a shed with paddock attached and decide their own in and out timetable. Kids sell for 100-175 and will cost about 2 a week to keep.

Labrador pups fetch about 500 each and will cost around 30 a month to feed when grown. They are more trouble than pigs and goats – to breed, to rear and to keep. But, of course, they do have a history as human companions which goes back further than Paris Hilton's latest whim.

CW 20/11/10