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My micro pig grew to 70kg!

Now: At 70kg, the once cute and cuddly Bacon weighs as much as an adult human. ‘I barely recognise him,’ Krystin says. Photo: Nigel Wright.

She was told he’d always be small enough to sit on her lap, but when Aussie woman Krystin Stauffer’s pet ‘teacup’ pig dramatically porked up, she was left buried in Bacon.

She bought the so-called micro pig for $650 in August 2010 when he was the size of a puppy.

Told he wouldn’t grow much larger, Krystin became suspicious when his weight ballooned.

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‘It’s hard to remember him back then,’ she says, looking at the massive hog that now weighs 70kg.

‘He was so small and cute. I thought he’d be a great alternative to a dog, but I soon realised he wasn’t.’

The pig – amusingly named Bacon – quickly outgrew the house Krystin lives in with her mum Carol and boyfriend Jamie near Newcastle in NSW.

‘I tried to put up baby safety gates on the laundry but he just bashed them down. Before long he could topple the entire fridge freezer looking for food.

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‘He clawed a sofa to pieces and the whole time he was getting bigger and bigger.’ Told to feed her pig just two Weet-Bix a day, Krystin searched the internet and discovered he needed much more.

Then: Krystin was shocked when her little pig Bacon kept growing. ‘I brought him home in a cat box,’ Krystin says of the pint-sized porker. Photo: Nigel Wright.

‘He started having a large bowl of grain mix for pigs and a couple of kilos of fruit and veg every day.’

By six months old, Bacon was 25kg and highly destructive. At night he whined until Krystin got up to feed him again. He longed to sit on her lap but was getting too big to be in the house.

‘Jamie said we needed to get rid of him, but I’d fallen in love. I desperately wanted to keep him,’ explains Krystin, 34. But by the end of the year, Bacon was an enormous 50kg.

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Krystin had to walk him around the block on a lead to exercise him and could no longer lift him. So she called Happy Farm, a pig rescue centre in Adelong, NSW, and they adopted Bacon.

‘It was heartbreaking. I couldn’t stop crying. I know he’s in a better place and we go to visit a couple of times a year,’ she says.

‘He’s even bigger now and has grown tusks. I’d tell anyone who wants a mini-pig not to bother. Get a dog instead.’

Visit www.thewonderpigs.com.au for more info on Happy Farm.

'''By Lisa Harmer
Photos: Nigel Wright'''