The number of pigs being abandoned is on the rise, according to Ireland's only pig shelter 'My Lovely Pig Rescue'.
Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, shelter manager Cathy Davey said people are abandoning the pigs because they cannot rehome them.
"We are having pigs thrown over people's garden walls, sometimes into people that they've heard are kind to animals," Ms Davey said.
The shelter is seeing inbred pigs, where people bought two pigs who are brother and sister, and "they end up with say 15 pigs when they only wanted two and they are not able to rehome these animals," Ms Davey added.
"It has become very unmanageable, we can't take in every pig that we get calls about, so they are roaming around meeting all sorts of ends and ending up in the wrong hands, continuing to breed and there is no restriction on people breeding those animals," she said.
Ms Davey said that just like it was with dogs, more people bought pigs during the pandemic with people seeing an opportunity "to make a quick buck".
"Pet pigs are very, very cute and piglets are even cuter and so a lot of people were breeding specifically for the pandemic," she said.
A lot of people who surrender their pigs are saying that they were told that they were "going to stay as micro or teacup pigs" and people are unaware of pigs' behaviour and how different they are to what they expect or what they see online.
Ms Davey said when it comes to rehoming pigs, their homing policy is very strict because of the amount of bounce back the shelter gets.
"People who do their piggy training, they go out of their way to get their pig herd number, they secure their perimeters, build a house and still they send the pigs back because once they have their first winter with these animals who are noisy and mucky, they realise that pigs aren't for them," she said.
As a result of this, their rehoming is "very slow", Ms Davey said.
The shelter might rehome six pigs a year but they could take in about 40 pigs a year.
