Posted on 07/02/2023 2:37:26 PM PDT by nickcarraway
"I'd never seen an animal that fat. She could barely walk"
A pig kept as a house pet in a Manchester flat and allowed to gorge on junk food for seven years ballooned to nearly three times its healthy weight.
Portly Portia, who weighed a whopping 26 stone, was so overweight she could barely after being fed a diet of biscuits and coke say staff at the animal sanctuary where she was eventually taken.
She was also 'utterly depressed' and had 'given up on her life' due to her condition they said.
The staff put her on a strict pig-friendly diet and made sure she got plenty of exercise in a field of her own and she now weighs a trim 9st 4lbs - a healthy weight for a pot-bellied pig, the Liverpool Echo reports.
Laura Whelan, founder at Whitegate Animal Sanctuary on the Wirral said: "Portia came to us last summer. She was living in someone's flat in as a house pig, being fed junk food, biscuits and Coca-Cola.
Portia balloned to 26 stone (Image: Whitegate Animal Sanctuary/Liverpool Echo) "She was morbidly obese. It was horrendous. I'd never seen an animal that fat. She could barely walk.
"She was utterly depressed. She's a very clever pig, and she was trapped in a horrible flat with just a yard, not even any mud.
Luckyland Slots Play The Most Exciting Social Slot Machines For Free At LuckyLand Slots® Today CalGrows - Free Training & Pay for Caregivers Are you a caregiver for older adults? by TaboolaSponsored Links "By the time we got her she'd given up on life. Sometimes she wouldn't even get out of her bed for 48 hours - just a hard, plastic dog bed, and the blankets in the bed were horrendous, just old curtains. It was a miserable existence.
"By that time she'd already lost the use of one leg because of the pure weight on her. She was very nearly completely lame. We got her just in time and put her a normal pig diet or pig pellets, and fruit and vegetables.
"At first she was still huge and struggling to get up, and we had to assist her every time. She was in pain and she'd lash out and try to bite.
Staff said she was 'utterly depressed' and almost 'completely lame' when she arrived at the sanctuary (Image: Whitegate Animal Sanctuary/Liverpool Echo) "Once she could get up and get mobile, the weight fell off her even more because she was exercising. Once she was up, there was no stopping her.
"She's amazing, she's very sassy, she has a proper piggy attitude. We have a pig field and, next to that, a cow field, and she will stand at the gate to shout at us to let her in. She knows when she wants to go.
"At tea time when she first arrived she was being bullied by the other pigs - they were eating her food because she wasn't quick enough.
"We started putting her in a little hut to eat, and now as soon as we arrive with the food she runs off to her hut and waits so she can eat in peace."
Laura, 41, set up the animal sanctuary in Hoylake five years ago to provide a safe haven for animals rescued from the meat and dairy industry. It is now home to around 150 pigs, cows, sheep, goats, chickens, ducks and turkeys.
Laura said: "We have two commercial pigs. One was found on the side of the road next to a pig farm; she had escaped and crawled to the side of the road, and needed a new home.
"The chickens are all from egg-laying farms. They often to come to us in a terrible state because there have been thousands packed into one barn.
"They're often bald with sparse feathers. Within a couple of months they've grown all their feathers back and are looking much better.
"Some farms can have 9,000 chickens in one barn and they can't all be rescued. We do our best to get as many as possible, but it's a matter of space and money.
"I've got two dairy farm male cows, which would have been put down because they're no use to the industry. They're all grown up now.
"It's beautiful to see the animals. Half of them would be dead, should be dead. I think of what would have happened to them if they hadn't come to us."
She added that she hopes to one day purchase a farm of her own, as the sanctuary currently resides on rented land.
She said: "With renting, we feel like we could go at any time, and if we were asked to leave, there's very few places we could go with 150 animals. We'd love to get our own place someday. That's our end goal, for security, to keep the animals safe. "
Well, not to sound racist or anything, but the black color of the pig reminds me of someone...
What do they expect, six-pack abs on a pot-bellied pig?
My neighbor overfed her pot belly pig. She got so fat she laid down all the time and developed sores. She had to be put down.
That’s awful. Poor thing.
Got nice looking white teeth and trimmed eyelashes.
mmmmm bacon ....
I never lived in manchester!
Lizzo — is that you?
“Lizzo — is that you?”
I wasn’t thinking of Liz Cheney, but you do have a point. I was thinking more of Stacey.
"Oh, no! All the food I can eat. Don't have to work for it. I'm so depressed." - Fat Pig
Oh, I thought it was an article about Michelle Obama...
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