If you’ve been to the Orange County Fair, you might have seen cute piglets chasing each other around a track. The All-Alaskan Racing Pigs have been a popular Orange County Fair attraction for decades, so we asked founder and owner Bart Noll, who operates it with his wife, Deanne, to answer some questions for us.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Q: What makes a good racing pig?
A: A good racing pig has a great demeanor and is a calm, easygoing pig. Most people want to avoid the runts of the litter, but I don’t shy away from the runts. They might be smaller and slower, but they usually catch up.
Q: How do you get the piglets to run?
A: Running is a natural behavior for pigs. We just follow their natural behaviors in training them. Despite the stereotypes about lazy pigs, they’re actually very athletic. They enjoy being active. To get them to race, we’re heavily into bribery. We feed them a healthy diet, but they love cookies. The first one to the (finish line) trough gets the cookie.
Q: How do they like being in the shows?
A: They are professional athletes. We make celebrities out of them. They get hands-on attention every day, compared to a pig on a farm. We treat all of them like they’re special.
Q: Where do they live on the road?
A: We bring 10 pigs on the road with us. They have their own aluminum livestock trailer we call the Piggy Penthouse. It is insulated and has heating and air conditioning and a water supply.
Q: How old are the racing swine? Are they a particular breed?
A: They’re generally between 2 1/2 and 3 1/2 months old. They’re a fairly rare English breed called Gloucester Old Spots. They’re what we call an orchard pig, which means they don’t do much rooting (in the dirt). Orchard pigs are gleaners, for example, they eat fruit that has fallen from trees. A lot of pigs are rooters, looking for food underground.
Q: Where do they come from?
A: We don’t breed our own pigs, we buy them from certain breeders we work with when they’re around 8-10 weeks old and newly weaned. We use mixed sexes, and we try to keep litters together when we can.
Q: Can fairgoers pet the pigs?
A: We don’t try to keep people away from the animals. They like to be touched. The Orange County Fair is not ideal for petting, because of the huge crowds. But at the end of the show, we bring out one pig to come out and pose for pictures. You can sit with the pigs and have your picture taken, but we do charge for that.
Q: Do the piglets get to play?
A: When no one’s around, we let them out to run around and play on the track. For the shows, we rotate the pigs so eight race and two rest each day. But on any given day, all 10 pigs want to get out and race.
Q: Where is the pigs’ home base?
A: We have two locations, in Oregon and Washington State. But they’re on the road typically from February to November. I was working at a fair in Fairbanks, Alaska when I heard of racing pigs, and we knew we wanted to do it. Originally, they were from Alaska, but not anymore.
Q: How much do they weigh?
A: Around 20-40 pounds. At adulthood, a mature pig will weigh 300-500 pounds.
Q: What happens to the pigs when they age out? Do they become bacon?
A: Well, some of them do, but part of our mission is to is to try to develop the (Gloucester Old Spots) breed in the U.S. So we try to place them with farmers interested in breeding them. (This ancient breed is considered endangered in both the U.S. and Britain.)
Q: What do you think about the Orange County Fair?
A: We just have a blast at the Orange County Fair. We’ve been coming here for more than 30 years. Now, we also have two other teams on the road as well.
Learn more: pigrace.com