I’ve always fancied keeping a pig. A few decades ago when I first came to Bali I was enchanted by the dithering ducks and charming little sway-back black pigs. They hung around the warungs when we ate, begging scraps and generally keeping the place clean. I remembered them fondly. And so a month ago I acquired two 8 week old piglets from Karangasem.
I’d read that pigs are as intelligent as dogs. I’d heard that they were nice creatures with tender hearts. Someone told me they were gentle and obedient. My observations thus far confirm none of these characteristics.
A pig lives for just one thing — food. There is no room for sentimentality in their tightly focused lives. Pigs are eating machines. Even after a heavy meal when they are slumbering in the cool dust with their bellies distended like footballs, they will heave themselves up on to their little hooves when I appear, just in case I have a tidbit for them.
Bali Buddha Café kindly donates a bucket of scraps every day. My staff strongly disapproved of feeding these straight to the pigs. “Kasian, Ibu,” said Wayan reproachfully. “The food is too hard. How can they eat it?” I looked at the heap of organic greens, soft bagel ends and noodles, then at the tough yam root the piglets had demolished in their paddock. “They seem to be managing,” I pointed out.
Wayan never argues with me but somehow has her way in the end. The next day I found that my staff had built an ingenious little clay stove near the paddock, and were cooking up the scraps in a big pot over a flame of bamboo scraps. “They like the food to be warm,” Wayan explained, scratching Paulette fondly behind her hairy black ears. Paulette grunted agreeably into her lunch. A few days later I saw Wayan making her way down to the ‘farm’ with a bowl of white powder. “Salt, Ibu. It makes the food taste better.” Next it will be chili sauce.
I’ve often thought that certain phrases in our language demeaned this noble animal, but closer observation reveals some home truths. Fat as a pig… just like us, pigs increase in girth according to the amount they consume. And because a pig is obsessed with food and will eat everything in sight, even a Bali asli pig can grow alarmingly large.
Eat like a pig… alas, the pig is not a dainty diner. Paulette and Peggy are served their warm mélange de jour in a large plastic tub, which they immediately and joyfully jump into up to their knees. Because they are always rootling around the paddock, their dirt-caked snouts add an element of mud to the meal which does not in the least diminish their appetites.
Your room is a pigsty… also true. In a couple of days, these two little animals had churned their large and pleasant paddock into mud hole, trampled their straw bedding into it, uprooted all the plants and were sleeping in a hollow between two banana trees instead of in their tidy house.
Pig-headed… no contest here. Pigs are creatures of strong character. It is very difficult to confine a pig if the pig would rather be somewhere else. At first they pushed up the wooden gate to their enclosure in their quest to graze on the lawn. Later, after we had strengthened the gate, they simply broke it down. When apprehended, Peggy becomes implacably stubborn in her refusal to leave my vegetable beds unplowed by that busy snout. Even lured by a buttered bagel, she returns to her paddock when she is damned good and ready and not a moment sooner.
Smell like a pig... this is a wicked lie. Pigs themselves have no smell and are very clean in their habits, always using the corner of their enclosure furthest from the feeding area. When fed real food, their droppings resemble and have less odour than a dog’s, and it’s easy to cover them with earth or leaves. Wayan bathes the pigs every couple of days, which they enjoy.
What does undeniably smell is the leftover, muddy, trampled pig food. We remove this immediately and compost it under fragrant rice straw. I can proudly claim that my pigs are as pongless as we can make them, despite my staff’s insistence that pigs just HAVE to smell.
In late afternoon I sometimes ramble down to the ‘farm’ with a cup of tea, and sit on the bench Nyoman has made in the pig paddock to spend some quality time with Peggy and Paulette. They decline to commune with me, however. After a thorough snuffle reveals that I’m not carrying anything interesting to eat, they ignore me. I’ve tossed a yellow ball to them, but this activity is evidently beneath their dignity. I begin to despair that our relationship will ever reach its full potential.
I learned a lot about Bali asli pigs from a fellow countrywoman who lives on the north coast. She nursed a fantasy about riding her pig along the beach and even had an appropriate harness made. When the pig was small, she massaged it daily and took it for short walks around the yard. The fantasy was building nicely. But then she had to go away for three months, which is a very long time even if you are not a baby pig. Their tender bond was broken. This pig now weighs 70 kilos. She eats puppies and baby chicks that wander too close, and chases my friend around the yard when she’s in heat, snapping at her heels.
A farmer from the Prairies tells me that the huge pigs bred there sometimes exceed 200 kilograms. It has been known to happen that a farmer may trip and fall in the sty, only to be remorselessly consumed by the behemoth he had been feeding for so long. Talk about irony.
These days I look at Peggy and Paulette more thoughtfully as I serve them their warm, nicely seasoned breakfast. There’s a look in those alert brown eyes that bears watching.
I must get Nyoman to put another bolt on the paddock gate.
