Piggy

This is Geordie, our pet kune kune piglet when just a few weeks old. Geordie is now a big fat and happy kune kune pig, enjoying living outside with one of his brothers. This picture was taken of Geordie inside his cage where he was raised until he was old enough to live outside in his pig house which we constructed for him and his brother. Both boys were operated on by our vet as all male kune kune pigs kept as pets should be castrated as intact males can be very difficult to look after and should only be kept by experienced pig owners who intend to breed from pedigree stock.

Our 3 day old hand raised pet kune kune pig being fed in the living room.

We live on a small croft in the Scottish Highlands and one day in spring of 2012 our farming neighbours turned up with a one day old kunekune piglet that was the runt of the litter, he was also not feeding from his mother. So we were offered a tiny kune kune pig that would need to be hand raised - fed every hour with replacement milk. With a certain reluctance my wife said she would like to give him a chance although we did not expect him to survive the first night with us. Well he did and we now have two amazing pet pigs who bring a smile to us every day.

We would like to share the adventure of keeping two rascal pet pigs and hope you enjoy the website as much as we enjoy raising pet kunekune's.

If you would like to keep pet pigs then we recommend that you join the British KuneKune Pig Society or one in your own country. Keeping pet pigs requires a fairly high level of dedication and you do need to consider that they need fed at least twice a day as well as having a source of water. You can not just put your pet pigs into a kennel for the duration of your holidays, you will need someone that is reliable and you trust to look after your pets in their own field. They also require vet checkups (and the vet will have to come out to you!) as well as sufficient room for them to roam and graze as they love to eat grass. Your pet pigs will also need a suitable shelter for your location, in our case this involved a fair bit of expense due to the cold and windy place where we live. If you are willing to spend the money and also your time then raising pet pigs can be a real pleasure and will bring a different perspective to animals. Warning - after you get close to pet pigs it may put you off eating bacon and other meats, it did for me. For my wife who has been a non meat eater since working on a pig farm when she was younger and it has not brought on a change of eating habits for her, but I suspect she loves her pigs more than she love me!

Companion Pigs

We got Buddy and a companion for Geordie. Buddy is actually Geordie's brother and was the second smallest piglet in the litter (Geordie was the smallest). As you can see Buddy is about a third of the size of Geordie and needed a fattening up. While Buddy has not caught up with Geordie in size he is now nearly as big. He also has a great personality.

You can see more pictures of Buddy & Geordie on our other website Piggy Wiggy and follow us on twitter or on Google +

This is our pet Kune kune piggy when he was one day old. He looked so cute. He should have been with his mum and other brothers and sisters, unfortunately he was the smallest of the litter; the runt (what a horrible name) and could not compete with his siblings for his mums milk, so he was getter weaker as the hours went on. He needed to be hand raised.

My wife wrapped him up in a blanket with a hot water bottle underneath to keep him warm while substitute milk was brought back from the local vets.

A face only a mother could love - yes this picture of our baby pig "Geordie" about sums it up. But he was definitely cute and we hoped he would survive being away from his mum. We did take him back down to see if he would feed from the mum pig but he was just not strong enough to compete with the other piglets for food and was not able to feed. So back home he was taken and we started him off on replacement multimilk from the vet. He loved it.

This is Gretel with her litter of one day old kune kune piglets. The one at the back is Geordie when we tried to see if he would feed from his mum. Unfortunately he was not strong enough compared to his brothers and sisters so he he would have died if we had not hand raised him.

I photographed Gretel with her litter of piglets and you can see these pictures on the Piglets page.