Annual piggy swim accross the English channel :)

Look at those pink energetic snouts! Cude, cude, cude :)

NEW FIND: Antique misterious (possibly aristocratic) piglet in the dark ... OINK!

Pink snout farm boy :) Ain't he cute?

Waterpiggy!!!

Piggy swimmer: Look at me! Look at meeee! Look how fast I am swimming! Spash! Splash! Oink! Oink!

Brown little Piggy wiggies

Aw here's some little brown piggies. They're not all pink you know!

Oink oink oink!

Cute little piggies! And a big fat piggy!

A squealer for Spookie!

He're a little piggy dedicated to Spookie who is the very first follower of my "Cute Little Piggies" blog. This one's pink, he goes "oink" and he's got a wiggly tail... Oh and he's got a black patch on his little oinky snout!


Anyone who signs up as a follower to this blog will get a special cute piggy dedicated to them too!

Barrel o' Piggies

Squeeee! Look at these four little squealers in the barrel!

Painted piglets

Oink! These two cute little piglets have been having lots of fun painting things.

Oink, slurp, oink!

Here's a pic of some cute little piglets at feeding time! Oink, oink, slurp, slurp, oink!

The poor little Doctor Who piggy

Here's a video of the cute alien piggy that was in the Doctor Who episode "Aliens of London". This poor little piggy was piloting a spaceship that crashed into Big Ben. Poor little thing.

Piglets Run

Here's a cute little animated piglet video.

RUN PIGLET RUN!!!!

Piglet pile

Some piglets crashed out in the hay keeping warm in a big pile.

Piglet Fun!

Here's a video of some cute little piggies on a farm. Some are pink and some are brown spotty ones. They are very inquisitive and friendly!

Aw, look at this cute piglet!

Piglets die in a farmyard blaze

Twenty pigs and piglets have died in a fire at a farm in Lancashire.
Six crews were called to Bates Farm on Parr Lane at Eccleston near Chorley after a fuel storage tank caught light about midnight on Wednesday.

A fire service spokesman said there was "a grave threat of escalation of the blaze causing an inferno."

The fire left a number of outbuildings with extensive damage. An investigation team have visited the scene to try to find out the cause of the fire.

Source: BBC

Hundreds of pigs die in farm fire

About 300 pigs were killed in a fire at a farm in North Yorkshire on Christmas Day.
Emergency fire crews were called to Waterloo Farm at Sproxton near Helmsley just before 2100 GMT after reports of a blaze in a pig shed.

About 20 firefighters tackled the blaze and crews remained at the scene for nearly two hours.

A spokeswoman for North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue said the fire was caused by an electrical fault in a fuse box.

Source: BBC

Piggy cam star has more piglets

A pig featured on a Cornish webcam which has attracted thousands of viewers from across the world has had a second farrow of piglets.
Delores and her 14 new piglets can be seen via the camera which is hosted by Saltash Community College.

The 20-stone Duroc cross-bred sow, who gave birth to her first farrow in March, attracted 21,000 hits on Saturday after the piglets were born.

The college has described the response as "amazing"

The pigcam was first set up so pupils at the college and other nearby schools could watch how Delores was progressing with her first pregnancy.

It was so successful that it was quickly set up again when teachers found out the 18-month-old sow was expecting a second farrow.

Teachers behind the project hoped it would help pupils gain a better understanding of animals.

Saltash College biology teacher Tim Venner said: "She teaches everything to do with the composition of an animal; with feeding, nutrition and particularly with reproduction, which is taught on courses from Year Seven right through to A-level."

Delores' first farrow got comments and good wishes from across the world and her second brood is again attracting international attention.

'Sense of community'

Saltash College Deputy Head Teacher Dave Garland said: "It's been absolutely phenomenal interest from right across the world.

"It's been mostly from Europe, but also from the United States, Australia, The Far East, from Canada, the list goes on."

"I think it's the sense of community we've got with the site. She's got her own blog where people can post comments, and is also a star on YouTube.

"She must the be the only pig in the world that has got so much IT connected with her."

The 12 piglets from her first farrowing were reared successfully and sold on.

Source: BBC

Taiwan breeds green-glowing pigs

Scientists in Taiwan say they have bred three pigs that "glow in the dark".

They claim that while other researchers have bred partly fluorescent pigs, theirs are the only pigs in the world which are green through and through.

The pigs are transgenic, created by adding genetic material from jellyfish into a normal pig embryo.

The researchers hope the pigs will boost the island's stem cell research, as well as helping with the study of human disease.

The scientists, from National Taiwan University's Department of Animal Science and Technology, say that although the pigs glow, they are otherwise no different from any others.

Taiwan is not claiming a world first. Others have bred partially fluorescent pigs before; but the researchers insist the three pigs they have produced are better.

In daylight, their eyes and skin are green-tinged

They are the only ones that are green from the inside out. Even their heart and internal organs are green, the researchers say.

To create them, DNA from jellyfish was added to about 265 pig embryos which were implanted in eight different sows.

Four of the female pigs became pregnant and three male piglets were born three months ago.

Green generation

In daylight, the researchers say the pigs' eyes, teeth and trotters look green. Their skin has a greenish tinge.

In the dark, shine a blue light on them and they glow torch-light bright.

The scientists will use the transgenic pigs to study human disease. Because the pig's genetic material encodes a protein that shows up as green, it is easy to spot.

So if, for instance, some of its stem cells are injected into another animal, scientists can track how they develop without the need for a biopsy or invasive test.

But creating them has not been easy. Many of the altered embryos failed to develop.

The researchers say they hope the new, green pigs will mate with ordinary female pigs to create a new generation - much greater numbers of transgenic pigs for use in research.

China to send pig sperm to space

China is planning to study the effects of space on sperm, by sending the semen from pedigree pigs into orbit.

Some 40 grams of pig sperm will be taken on board the Shenzhou VI spacecraft for its October launch.

Some of the sperm will be kept outside the spacecraft's biological capsule and some inside, according to China's Xinhua news agency.

Surviving sperm will be returned to Earth and used to understand better the processes involved in pig reproduction.

The pigs chosen are a breed called Rongchang, named after an area in the southwest of the country and famed for their physique and for the quality of their meat.

Agricultural experts hope to use the sperm to fertilise pig eggs back on Earth - to see what effect a period of microgravity will have had on the sperm's activity.

China's first manned spaceflight two years ago made it the third country able to launch a human into space on its own, along with Russia and the United States.

During the upcoming mission, two astronauts will orbit the planet five or six times.
Source: BBC