'Rest stop piggy' rescued from side of northern B.C. highway

A mini pig was recently rescued from a rest stop on a Northern B.C. highway. (Photo courtesy of Kerri Hegel, PG Tickled Pig Rescue)

No one knows exactly how a pig ended up at a rest stop on the side of the highway in northern B.C., where she survived mainly by sauntering up to strangers' cars and soliciting snacks before being rescued.

The sow – a Juliana-mini pig mix with a taste for Tim Horton's donuts – was found on the side of Highway 97 near Hixon, which is about 61 kilometeres away from Prince George. She is now in the care of Kerri Hegel, who runs PG Tickled Pig Rescue.

Hegel says she first learned about "rest stop piggy" who she describes as "quite a petite, little lady" last week when she got a call from a concerned passerby.

"We rushed out there to see and, sure enough, there she was hobbling across the rest stop just looking at people pulling up because she knew they'd have food," Hegel tells CTV news.

"Obviously people have been feeding her for a fair bit, she knew what she was doing."

Noting the pig's apparent comfort with people and after speaking with members of a construction crew working nearby who said they thought the friendly animal must live on a nearby farm, Hegel opted to leave the pig in place.

"We didn't want to take her," Hegel said.

But after driving around and talking to people who lived in the area, it became clear that there was nowhere nearby that could possibly be the pig's home.

"There was nothing within a small enough distance for her to just come and visit every day," Hegel said.

"No one was familiar with her. Nobody's turned up to say that she's theirs."

She also noticed that it seemed as though the pig's potbelly was sagging more than it should be, suggesting it had lost a significant amount of weight recently, and that the animal's hooves were overgrown, which was making walking difficult and seemingly painful.

So, Hegel decided to bring the pig home to her rescue, enlisting the help of a group of people and using a donut as an enticement in order to wrangle the 60-kilogram animal into the kennel.

Now that the pig is at her new home, Hegel says she's become quite curious about the other porcine occupants of the farm. Until she gets a check-up to make sure she doesn’t have any communicable conditions like mange, "rest stop piggy" is separated from the others by a fence.

"She's so interested in being with the other piggies. For the first couple of days she would just walk up and down the fence line with them, staring at them," Hegel said.

And the new addition to the farm has caught the eye of a resident hog.

"Our one rescue Rupert, I don't know why, he's taken quite a liking to her. So those two would just walk back and forth along the fence staring at each other," Hegel said.

"One day, I came out and Rupert had busted through the fence and there he was with her."

Hegel is currently crowdsourcing suggestions for a permanent name for the pig. Popular suggestions have included Petunia and Penelope, but there's currently no clear frontrunner.

The rescue is also asking for donations to help pay for the surgery "rest stop piggy" will need to fix her hooves.