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Welcome to the pigs page !Meet some of our wonderful Brightside Pigs...
Celeste
Celeste is the newest pig to arrive at Brightside. We bought her just before Christmas from the local saleyards where she was like all the other pigs there destined for the dinner table.
Within two weeks of rescue she had already starred on the front page of Hobarts Mercury Newspaper. She has a great personality and likes to be involved in everything we do.
 When a car arrives at Brightside she is the first to leap inside it checking for food scraps and treats.
Recently the local doctor called in for a cup of tea as we came out the back door I was horrified to see Celeste inside the doctors car and in the baby´s car seat giving it a good clean!
She also loves to curl up in the dog basket with one or two of the dogs.Pictured right is Daisy the greyhound asleep with Celeste.
 Celeste proves that pigs if given a quality life are not at all lazy, as with the other pigs she is always on the move.
She will pop up all over the sanctuary.She spends her days with various animals as well as with people.
Pictured right is Celeste with Lochie the rescued three legged sheepdog.
 Harriet Loveday
Harriet Loveday is a minature pig. She was on display at the Hobart Show Animal Nursery and was very thin.
She was also a resident of a zoo we have received many complaints about. We purchased Harriet for $70 because she really looked like she desperately needed a new start in life.
Every evening as I glanced out the window I would see her tearing off across the paddocks to the dam for her nightly swim and mud bath with her friend Jimmy. We are happy to say she gainied weight quicly and went to a loving home with 2 other rescued sanctuary pigs.
 Fudge
Fudge came to the sanctuary in March 2005 she was 4 weeks old and was very ill. She had scalded red raw skin up her back legs from standing in a filthy wet concrete pen and she had a shocking cough that took some months to shake off. We fell instantly in love. She was an immediate hit in our family the 6 dogs and the cat were thrilled to have her and the cat immediately took to sleeping on top of her. She was by day two coming to her name and soon after sitting politely when she was asked to. It amazed me how intelligent she was in fact she left the dogs for dead. It´s hard to have a bad day with Fudge in our lives. She is our angel. I call her our natural anti depressant. She is gentle and kind and like Willie loves nothing more than a trip in the Ute to do a school visit. If ever a child cries, Fudge will get very upset and make soft little honking sounds and brush her muddy snout gently against the child´s face until they stop ctying.
One of Fudge´s favourite pastimes is a good pig wrestle. She loves a play-fight, and this is not for the faint-hearted.
 Wilbur
Wilbur or Willie as we call her is a little younger than Fudge. She is a movie star! She starred in Paramount pictures film Charlottes Web and when it was finished she was looking for a home and we were lucky enough to be able to adopt her. Willie was purchased by Paramount from a factory farm where her mother spent life in a sow stall like some 350,000 other sows in Australia. A sow stall is a 2 metre long, 60cm wide crate made of steel bars. No place for a pig and Willie was lucky to be taken from the misery of the piggery. Willie is full of life and full of mischief it takes a good fence to keep her in; she likes to have access to the whole farm and nothing less. She can even jump a fence should the need arise and it´s nothing for her to stand vertically on her back legs to get her head in the feed bin should the lid be left open. Like the other pigs Willie loves to accompany us on long walks.
Wilbur burst into tears. "I don´t want to die," he moaned. "I want to stay alive, right here in my comfortable manure pile with all my friends. I want to breathe the beautiful air and lie in the beautiful sun."
--E.B White (Charlotte´s Web)
 Diana (right)
Diana is named after a human friend. She is a smaller and more frantic individual; rarely do we see her sit still. (Much like my friend) She loves a chat, and learned to sit in about 2 minutes. She was shown only once and since then it´s been her favourite trick! If she sees anything remotely looking like food in your hand her bottom hits the ground before you can blink!
There is only one thing Diana loves as much as food and that´s a belly scratch if you touch her stomach she falls over and closes her eyes grunting with delight. Diana lives with Celeste and Harriet these days.
Rufus (above)
Rufus is a miniature pig although he resembles a wombat more than a pig. He came to us from the RSPCA . He was found wandering the roadside. It´s a mystery why no one claimed this dear little human-loving individual who, like Diana falls over the minute you touch his sides!
 Lulu
Lulu was purchased from a piggery when she was 4 weeks old (just weaned) she had mange and was very itchy, her skin was dry, cracked and sore. After a few baths in some awfully bad smelling medicated wash her skin became healthy again. Many people have met Lulu as she did alot of campaign work around Hobart over Christmas and has also visited primary schools where she would pick the sand shoes with the coarsest tread to scratch on !
Cherie
Cherie is our very special Christmas pig. One Christmas we decided to ´save a pig for Christmas´  so the week before Christmas we headed off to the saleyards knowing we were in for a less than pleasant experience.
Arriving we were faced with looking at row after row of pens with unfortunate animals in them most facing their final day before death. The bidding started just after we arrived at the pigs. One by one these unfortunate animals were under the auctioneers hammer. Those bidding were the local butchers and they moved down the row with one pig being sold at a time. The auctioneer arrived at the pen in front of me, a female pig lay trembling in the corner, jokes rang around about her being almost big enough for Christmas dinner... with a bit of Christmas luck. A man kicked her to her feet so as every one could get a good look at her quivering body. Each time the terrified pig moved back to the corner and lay down she recieved another boot in the side. I bidded quickly, loaded her into the ute and took her home to her new life with her new name and new friends to a place where she would be safe with us at Brightside. She was very wild but on day 3 my daughter got just close enough to deliver a good belly rub, Cherie fell to her side grunting and was transformed instantly into our loving and now remarkably trusting friend.
 Jimmy
Jimmy is a minature pig who was unable to stay in his previous home. He was purchased by his former owner who was unaware of the amount of work required to keep a pig. She was very fond of him and wanted him to be happy and have the freedom and friends a pig deserves so they bought him to Brightside.Jimmy has done many school visits and walks very politely on a lead. Here is is on the right in Launceston at a Global Learning Centre Youth Ambassador Conference where we are ambassadors.
"Before they reach their end, the pigs get a shower, a real one. Water sprays from every angle to wash the farm off them. Then they begin to feel crowded. The pen narrows like a funnel´ the drivers behind urge the pigs forward, until one at a time they climb onto the moving ramp... Now they scream, never having been on such a ramp, smelling the smells they smell ahead. I do not want to over dramatize because you´ve read all this before. But it was a frightening experience, seeing their fear, seeing so many of them go by, it had to remind me of things no one wants to be reminded of anymore, all mobs, all death marches, all mass murders and executions ... "
U.S meat inspector.
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The Pigs