Hilda was born in September 1998. She is the only piglet to survive from the
piglets born with her, and had to be hand-reared because her mother was
unable to look after her properly. For the many visitors who remember her
when she was a tiny piglet, she is one of the favourite animals on the farm.
Hilda was fed milk from a baby feeding bottle by museum staff until she was
old enough to feed herself, and spent a lot of time being ferried around in
a barrow as a piglet when she broke her leg! Luckily, her leg healed well
after some time in plaster, and Hilda has adjusted to life as a pig very
well, although the media attention at the time rather went to her head, and
she now considers herself to be a VIP (Very Important Pig).
Hilda is a Wild Boar crossed with Tamworth and Berkshire. This mixture of
old and wild breeds gives us a pig that is as close as possible in size and
appearance of the domestic pig kept by the Anglo-Saxons, from the evidence
of archaeology and early manuscript illustrations. Our pigs have long
snouts, prick ears and dark hairy coats with a distinctive ridge along the
spine behind their shoulders, and look completely unlike modern pigs. The
hairy coats keep them warm in winter and consist of two layers, the coarser
bristles (used for making brushes) and a fine fluffy undercoat to trap warm
air next to the skin. This coat is shed in late spring in large lumps,
making them look very scruffy for a few weeks! In the hot weather they keep
cool by rolling and digging in wet mud and water, but unlike modern pigs we
don't have to put suntan cream on them!
Hilda became a mother in February 2002 when she gave birth to nine piglets -
seven male and two female - and looked after them very well, despite our
worries that she would not know what to do given her unusual upbringing!
Wild Boar piglets are stripy when they are born and this characteristic has
shown up on all the cross-breed piglets born on the farm; it makes them look
very cute indeed. The stripes gradually fade as they grow up.
Eight of the piglets were sold but we kept Mathilda, who can be
distinguished from her mum because she has a slightly more ginger coat, a
kink in her tail and a permanent Mona Lisa-style enigmatic smile. We chose
the name because of its similarity to Hilda's name.
Pigs were kept both domestically and hunted in the wild in the Anglo-Saxon
period. They were useful not just for meat but for their skins. They are
easy to fatten up as they will eat a wide range of food, and could have also
be used to clear land or forage in woodland for acorns in the autumn. The
meat is easy to preserve by salting or smoking.
As well as proprietary pig food, our pigs enjoy fruit, vegetables and green
fodder. Their favorite game is playing with mouthfuls of fresh straw
bedding, or with twigs and branches when we have been pruning trees and
shrubs.
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