Little pigs

By Claire Elliot

AT just six days old these rare Kune Kune piglets are no bigger than a pet guinea pig.

And as they curiously scurry around their straw bedding, they very much behave like their rodent namesake too.

They are so adorable that owner Claire Maitland and her family can spend hours playing with the tiny bundles at their home near Crathes, Aberdeenshire.

The little porkers are so tame they will even roll onto their backs to have their tummies tickled.

Despite being regarded as a miniature pig, however, they are anything but small.

When these pet piglets grow up they will reach the size of a large whisky keg and weigh more than the average grown man, tipping the scales at anything up to 17 stone.

 Their mother Frankie, a five-year-old sow, can eat a bucket of pig feed a day, plus apples, bread and carrots for treats.

 Daughter Anna, 18, said: “Most families have a composter, but we don’t need one, she’s ours.”

The teenager is now hoping to persuade her mother to keep one of Frankie’s litter.

 She said: “They are so cute and friendly and they are a bit different from the usual dog or cat.

“You don’t have to do a lot for them, we just try to tame them up a bit.

“I just love them.”

The piglets were born on Saturday night, all with cream and brown tortishell markings.

Mother-of-four Claire, 49, founder of the Sandpiper Trust, which provides life-saving medical equipment bags to GPs in rural parts of Scotland, said: “They are just the most adorable little things.

 “And the most amazing thing is that they are born running around.

“The night they were born, just above in a tree, there was a barn owl with her babies watching. It was wonderful.”

The piglets will stay with their mother for the next six weeks, before new homes are found for them.

With a fox on the prowl, however, Claire said she was keeping an extra close eye on the brood, as piglets were a delicacy for foxes.

Kune Kunes were first imported to the UK in the early 1990s from New Zealand and their name means fat and round in Maori.

They sell for around £100 each and their placid nature makes them ideal outdoor family pets.