Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Update from Melvin!

Update from Melvin!


Teacup Tuesday: Teacup Pigs?

Posted: 25 Jan 2010 07:45 PM PST

I've been getting a lot of requests to do a post on the coveted "Teacup Piglets" and honestly, I've been on the fence about it. I've had pigs in my life. Big, smelly, regular pigs. They all reached around 500 pounds fully grown, so I could see how a 65 pound pig could be considered "teacup". Now here's the part where I wasn't so sure about these little guys... I've read a lot of reports from pig rescues that these "teacup" pigs are getting a LOT bigger than their projected 65 pound weight, and sometimes ending up hitting the 100 pound mark. Makes you wonder a bit, eh? Well here's the cold hard truth:



"Teacup", "Micro", or "Mini" pigs are basically regular old potbelly pigs. That's right, something that looks like this when it's an itty bitty baby:



Turns out looking like this at 5 years old:



The biggest explanation for this is that people don't realize one key factor to pig growth: Pigs aren't fully grown until they turn 5 years old! All of the "guarantees" that I have read on teacup pig breeders only guarantee 65 pounds by age TWO. That leaves three years of growing!

Since the growing popularity of the micro piglets, over 300,000 pigs have been surrendered to various rescues around the world! Most of which ending up being 150+ pounds!

Now, unlike other teacup animals, there isn't an issue of breeding runts to runts, or underfeeding the piglets to make them smaller. No, these piglets are NORMAL size. The only way that people are getting away with these scams is by selling to people that no nothing about pigs and their growth rate. That is the scariest part to me. Thousands of people are shelling out thousands of dollars for one of these adorable little guys not knowing that these tiny little 2 pound porkers will end up being 50 times bigger in five more years. The worst part? These pigs are being advertised as "Perfect apartment pets!". Nothing's better than a 150 pound farm animal hanging out in your studio apartment, right?



Pigs are amazing pets. They are smart, fastidious and trainable. But they are also very destructive (rooting will DESTROY your yard), stubborn, and will become obscenely fat without the proper diet. To anyone looking to buy a teacup pig, they are SCAMS and nothing more. Do all of your research on any animal before you buy. Look into rescuing one of the thousands of homeless pigs that were victims of this terrible fad if you feel that a pig is right for you.


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