Pig left unable to walk after being fed biscuits and cola for seven years
A morbidly obese pig has been given a new lease of life after being held in a flat where she was fed junk food and fizzy drinks.
Portia was barely able to walk after being kept in the cramped Manchester flat on a "miserable existence" eating processed, sugary human foods.
The poor farmyard animal had spent seven years in the apartment, but is now enjoying life again as she feels the earth between her trotters at an animal sanctuary.
She's now been put on a pet-friendly diet after moving to Whitegate Animal Sanctuary in the Wirral, Merseyside, where volunteers say she is living her best life.
Thanks to her better, pig-friendly diet and freedom to roam around her own field, Portia has managed to shed the pounds down to a trimmer 9st 4lbs.
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She spent seven years living in a flat and being fed unhealthy, human food (BBC)Laura Whelan, the sanctuary's founder, told the Liverpool ECHO: "Portia came to us last summer. She was living in someone's flat in as a house pig, being fed junk food, biscuits and Coca-Cola.
"She was morbidly obese. It was horrendous. I'd never seen an animal that fat. She could barely walk.
"She was utterly depressed. She's a very clever pig, and she was trapped in a horrible flat with just a yard, not even any mud. By the time we got her she'd given up on life.
"Sometimes she wouldn't even get out of her bed for 48 hours - just a hard, plastic dog bed, and the blankets in the bed were horrendous, just old curtains. It was a miserable existence."
She now has a field to herself (BBC)Pigs are famously fiercely intelligent, with studies finding their brains can outperform those of dogs and some even smarter than three-year-old children.
Laura, 41, said Portia was so unhealthy however, she'd already lost the use of one of her legs and was almost completely lame.
"At first she was still huge and struggling to get up, and we had to assist her every time," said the sanctuary founder.
"She was in pain and she'd lash out and try to bite. Once she could get up and get mobile, the weight fell off her even more because she was exercising. Once she was up, there was no stopping her.
"She's amazing, she's very sassy, she has a proper piggy attitude. We have a pig field and, next to that, a cow field, and she will stand at the gate to shout at us to let her in. She knows when she wants to go.
Portia had almost lost the use of one of her legs when she came to the sanctuary (BBC)"At tea time when she first arrived she was being bullied by the other pigs - they were eating her food because she wasn't quick enough.
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"We started putting her in a little hut to eat, and now as soon as we arrive with the food she runs off to her hut and waits so she can eat in peace."
Portia shares the sanctuary with around 150 other pigs, as well as chickens, cows, sheep, goats and other poultry.
Ms Whelan set it up five years ago as she wanted to rescue farm animals from the meat and dairy industry.
One of Portia's pig friends was rescued from a roadside next to a pig farm, where Laura thinks she crawled her way free.
"It's beautiful to see the animals," she added. "Half of them would be dead, should be dead. I think of what would have happened to them if they hadn't come to us."
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