CURLY
Sweet Curly is a very lucky pig indeed. In 2013, a Land Conservancy fundraising gala was auctioning off a heritage-breed, “organically-fed” pig; the auction winner would get to choose a pig from a “free-range” farm (one that caters to the finer restaurants of NYC) and walk away with the slaughtered, packaged remains ready for the freezer.
Thankfully, a family in attendance was so horrified by this that they bid the highest in order to save the pig. Soon after, the whole family went to the farm to pick one out of the 13 piglets who all had been growing up together. With the choice of who to spare nearly impossible, the family deferred to their 6-year-old son for the decision.
He was drawn to the very smallest piglet, who he named “Curly Tail”, after a character in one of his favorite books, The Pig’s Wedding. And she does indeed have an intact and curly tail! When Curly arrived she stole everyone’s hearts. Initially terrified, within less than 24 hours she was letting us give her belly rubs and happily snorting at the other pigs in the next pen.
Curly relaxing in the wallow on a sunny day.
Curly strolling around the pasture by the pig barn.
Over time, she began spending more and more supervised time with the big pigs and with Olive, who arrived 10 days after her. Now you can find Curly spending her days with Antonio and Amelia in the senior pig barn.