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Colby pig could live happily ever after
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BY AMY CALDER
Staff Writer Kennebec Journal & Morning Sentinel 06/26/2008

WATERVILLE -- This little piggy might just live happily ever after.

Four days after being captured on West River Road, the Vietnamese pot-bellied pig that has been roaming the city for weeks is going to a new home in Casco.

He will fit right in at the town's Mayberry Hill Preschool, according to Mac Simpson, a Colby College senior whose parents own the school.

"We have, like, 30 kids," Simpson said Wednesday. "My dad, 10 years ago, started the idea of getting a petting zoo so I built the fences and stuff like that and over the years we've had as many as four pot-bellied pigs, sheep, goats, donkeys, we used to have llamas, ducks -- we have had a lot of ducks."

The pig will join another Vietnamese pot-bellied pig named "Little Gordy," who lives at Mayberry and was orphaned last winter when his parents, Big Gordy and Petunia, died after leaving the shelter and going out into a snowstorm, Simpson said.

"The little one's all lonely so we figured this one will just keep it warm in the winter and keep it company," he said.

Simpson, 22, an economics major and Colby basketball player, sort of adopted the pig by default.

Last month, some Colby football players went on an online classified-ad Web site to find a pig to roast at the end-of-school pig roast, Simpson said. They bought a pig to cook and purchased the charcoal-gray pot-bellied pig to play with at the event.

"But when they got to the pig roast, he slipped right out of his leash and ran away," he said. "If you were a pig and you go to a pig roast, you'd run away, too. It's not the ideal spot to hang out."

The football players tried for two weeks to capture the pig, which would get close enough to feed, but kept running away whenever anyone attempted to nab it.

They knew that Simpson's parents had a farm so they devised a plan, unbeknownst to him, to give the pig to him when they were done with it, he said. After the swine escaped, they informed him of their plan.

"They told me, 'When we find it, it's your pig,'" Simpson said. "I'm like, 'Well, if you find it, then I will take it in.'"

Wednesday night, Simpson's parents, Barbara and Kelly, were scheduled to retrieve the pig from Donald and Judy Shores' farm in Oakland, where it has been kept since being captured Saturday.

Police were called to West River Road Saturday where someone had been feeding the pig French fries. Police briefly stunned the pig with a Taser gun and then captured it with a snare pole.

Judy Shores said Wednesday that the pig has been a rather subdued guest at her dairy farm.

"He's not too active; course, pigs lay around anyways," she said. "I think he's just recuperating from his experience he went through. He don't come up when he's fed -- he just stays in his bed. But he does eat because his food disappears."

Shores said she got a call from a young man who said the pig would be going to a farm. She was not aware that it also was a pre-school but was intrigued with the idea.

"Sounds good," she said.

Meanwhile, Simpson, speaking from his cell phone while driving to his summer job at the Boulos Co. in Portland, said his parents' preschool is waiting for the pig, which will be in good company there.

"There's Little Gordy, the pig, and we have three goats, we have two donkeys, we have a chicken house and we probably have eight hens and a rooster, we have a couple ducks, two turkeys."

As for a name for the new pig, Simpson said usually the children name the animals, but there might be an exception allowed here. "We'll probably name it Colby, because we got it from Colby," he said.

Amy Calder -- 861-9247

acalder@centralmaine.com

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