Woodland Wonders

Chris Graham meets Vicky Quick, and her second batch of much-loved and greatly-appreciated, native breed pigs

It’s always inspiring to meet people who are new to pig keeping and are still full of the first flush of enthusiasm. Vicky Quick is just such a person; she’s achieved an enormous amount from a standing start in the past six months, and is already a self confessed ‘pigaholic’!

With no previous experience with livestock, or family connection with farming, Vicky’s route to the pig-keeping hobby has been an unusual one. “Up until a few months ago, the closest I’d got to a pig was a cuddly toy, called Pierre, that I had when I was a child,” she recalled as we sat chatting in her beautifully remote, Devonshire cottage, near Tiverton.

Caring attitude

“I’ve always been an animal lover and lots of my friends call me Dr Doolittle. If there’s ever an injured creature you can bet your life that I’ll find it, then do all I can to nurse it back to health. I wanted to be a vet when I was growing up but, in the end, was put off by the seven-year training. Instead, I did a degree in psychology, and then worked for the police as an intelligence analyst.

“I absolutely loved that job, especially at the start but, after doing it for 10 years – and always being so immersed in crime – it started to get me down. At that stage, my partner was working at the Sir Harold Hillier Gardens, near Romsey, in Hampshire, and there were some British Saddleback pigs that were kept specifically for woodland-clearing duties.

“They were fed by the staff on a rota basis and, whenever it came around to Chris’ turn, I’d beg him to take me along. The more I had to do with them, the more I felt a connection, and that started me thinking about becoming a keeper myself.