Man set to lose pet pig, rooster illegally kept in Townsville suburb
A man has been left saddened after coming to the realisation he will have to lose his pig he has hand-raised for months, after finding it orphaned on a roadside.
Townsville
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A man has been left saddened after coming to the realisation he will have to lose the pig he has hand-raised for months after finding it orphaned on a roadside.
Daniel English treated the wild pig he named Missy “like a dog” for the past eight months but a complaint to Townsville City Council means he will have to give up the hog.
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“She’s been brought up in the house,” he said. “She slept on my bed for the first month.
“The mother was dead, and she was lying on the road beside her.”
The little piglet Mr English first picked up has since grown up to weigh about 65kg and prompted a complaint by someone who deemed Mr English’s Gulliver property too small.
He also has a rooster named Kuda which also cannot be kept in a suburban property.
Mr English came to accept the ruling but dreads to think of the outcome.
“(The council will take Missy away) because she’s in a block that’s not of sufficient size,” Mr English said.
“I said fair enough if she’s a wild, untamed animal but she’s a hand-raised razorback. She doesn’t root up, she doesn’t sty, she doesn’t stink, I wash her every week.
“She calls out when she’s hungry, and that’s it.”
A Townsville City Council spokesman said the council had received a number of complaints about Missy and Kuda.
“Under Local Law No. 2, pigs and roosters cannot be kept on allotments with an area less than 4000sq m. This law exists to protect the amenity of our community and environment,” he said. “Council is taking the appropriate enforcement actions against the animal owner to resolve the matter.”
Keeping a feral pig, regarded as a pest, is prohibited in Queensland.
It is estimated there up to 24 million feral pigs in Australia. They are among Queensland’s most widespread and damaging pest animals, which spread weeds, degrade soil and water, damage crops and carry diseases.
They are typically smaller, leaner and more muscular than domestic pigs, their coats usually black, or black and white spotted.
Originally published as Man set to lose pet pig, rooster illegally kept in Townsville suburb