Runaway pigs drag rescuer through hedge

Sammi Allen was injured being dragged through a hedge by two roped pigs

An amateur animal rescuer was dragged through a hedge as she attempted to rope two runaway pigs.

On Monday, Sammi Allen managed to capture two pigs who had been roaming the fields near Walesby, Nottinghamshire, since the tail-end of last week - only for one to leap over the waist-high temporary pen she had built to contain them.

The animal lover has now been given Wednesday off work by her chip shop employers to continue her attempts to catch the remaining runaway.

Once successfully snared, both pigs will be taken in for health checks and eventual rehoming by charity Brinsley Animal Rescue.

Miss Allen, of Ollerton, said the pigs were friendly and seemed familiar with being fed from a bucket, so were most likely pets that had been released.

Both approached her when she arrived with a bucket of feed.

She said: "I've seen the pigs on Facebook, and reading the comments they'd been there a few days, the police had been involved but didn't find anyone they belong to, so I took the day off work and went up there."

After first managing to lure the pair into a makeshift pen in a field with the food on Monday, they "legged it" when a tractor arrived.

The two pigs are thought to be pets that were dumped in the countryside

Miss Allen said: "I spent about an hour and a half chasing them back and forth through the hedges, but as arable fields they're not really designed to keep livestock in.

"When we were just about to give up, I did manage to sit quietly with them in the hedge and they started eating from the bucket again, so I got some rope over their heads.

"They did take off and dragged me through the hedge - I've cut all my face - but we managed to build a pen around them."

However the temporary enclosure did not do its job.

Miss Allen said: "Just as we were discussing whether the pigs can jump and how high, one jumped straight out."

'Fantastic pets'

The trapped pig is now in Miss Allen's stable block at home, where she keeps horses and goats, while attempts continue to capture his partner-in-crime.

Brinsley Animal Rescue has pledged to take in the pair once caught, but said calls about dumped pigs were "unfortunately not unusual", with three strays collected in the past year.

In October, a blind piglet named Benny was saved after being found in Farnsfield.

Jon Beresford, co-founder and trustee of the charity, said: "With pigs, there's really two kinds that we find that we get calls for - pet pigs that people have bought and they've not done their research, and the commercial type that escape from farms.

"Once they've escaped, the farmers don't want them back and they just cause carnage.

"If you have the right space, the right fencing, and you've done your homework, pigs make fantastic pets.

"They really are super intelligent, very affectionate, really great animals to have. But a lone pig in a garden becomes very very bored and they become super-destructive."