Micro pigs may be the £700 accessory du jour for celebrities including Victoria and David Beckham, but there is a catch: they may not remain micro. An advertisement from a leading breeder has been banned after experts queried a claim that the pigs would not grow beyond pint-size.
The complaints centred on advertising claims by the Cambridgeshire-based Little Pig Farm, a purveyor of pampered micro pigs billed as getting "a big cuddle each and every day", with Classic FM piped through to their bedrooms.
Members of the British Kune Kune Pig Society, specialists in a particularly compact, photogenic breed described as a "Walt Disney version of a pig", complained to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) about Little Pig Farm magazine advertisements claiming it sold "easy to care for" pigs that are the "smallest in the UK", measuring just 12in to 16in (30cm to 40cm) when fully grown.
The society argued the ad was misleading because there is "no breed that would grow only as tall as 16 inches". The society also argued that "easy to care for" was misleading as its members reckoned the pigs would grow much larger and would thus "become difficult to care for as pets".
The ASA agreed on the first point and has banned the advertisement. The kune kune society has had a further say, warning that too many wannabe mini pig owners rush in without knowing their kune kunes from their Gloucester Old Spots.
"There is no breed of pig called the mini, micro, miniature or teacup pig," it says. "As a society we are regularly contacted by people who have bought a 'tiny' pig, that has grown to an unexpected size. The smallest breed of domesticated pig in the world is the kune kune."
The Little Pig Farm admitted some pigs had been returned because they had "exceeded the anticipated size". But it added that the overwhelming majority had "remained within the quoted size range at maturity".
The farm said it had been mis-sold stock which had resulted in cross-breeding some pigs that were too big but that "this stock had since been removed from their breeding pool".
The ASA said the farm had not substantiated its claim of pigs growing no more than 12in to 16in and banned the ad for misleading consumers. However, it dismissed the complaint that the pigs were not "easy to care for", saying readers "would understand there was a certain amount of work and effort involved in caring for the little pigs, irrespective of their eventual size".