30 Jun 2021 And these little piggies went everywhere

By Becky Bell

Vickie Casey, who is known as the Pig Lady, loves to share her love of pigs with people who may not have ever seen one up close.

You might see Casey at a festival or a birthday party for children or adults with a dozen pigs in tow for everyone to pet and hold and adore. She will come out for any occasion. Schools sometimes ask her to come so the children can have a petting zoo for the afternoon. She’s been doing this for about six or seven years.

“The thing is that people who do these parties sometimes have a child, and usually it’s a little girl, who is obsessed with pigs,” she said. “They come out with the coolest cupcakes or cakes with piggy themes. Once, there were cupcake piggy ears, piggy snouts, and they had two big foot-long inflatable pigs on my table.”

Casey knew one of those inflatables would be great for her festival appearances, so she asked where the mother had bought the item. She ended up taking one home that she continues to use today.

Casey, raised on a farm in Mount Vernon, developed her affection for pigs at an early age.

“If they were born in the cold or they weren’t doing well, I always got to play nurse,” she said. “That’s when my love for pigs started.”

These days, she has about 125 pigs on her property in Quitman, with probably 100 of those being mini pigs. She said mini pigs are technically anything up to 24 inches tall and 300 pounds.

“That is where knowing your breeder comes in,” she said. “I’ve got some close to that big. When I breed them, I breed them with a smaller breed of pig. Sometimes you have either a smaller size or an awesome disposition.”

The pigs she takes to parties and festivals are small enough to be held. Although most people think pigs are always pink, they are not, she said. She has one breed, the Mangalitsa, that are striped when they are small. They do outgrow this eventually, but most people enjoy seeing such a different-looking pig, she said.

One of the things Casey likes most about being the link between people and pigs is the expression she sees on the person’s face when they are holding the animal. One year at Heber Springs, something special happened with an elderly woman.

“A mother and daughter came up to me, and the daughter said, ‘My mother is 86 years old and she’s never touched a pig in her whole life,’” Casey said. “I let her hold that pig, and the look on that 80-something-year-old’s face was like a 4-year-old on Christmas.”

This experience was not the first time Casey had seen pigs make an impression on elderly people. Once when she was working in a nursing home, she was given permission to bring one to work with her to show the residents.

“I saw what these pigs did for these elderly people who couldn’t really do anything but look out the window,” she said, tearing up. “It touched my heart.”

Once during the Wings Over the Prairie Duck Festival at Stuttgart, a man came by and gave her one of the best compliments she has received as the Pig Lady.

“He said, ‘Ma’am, I have been doing festivals now for 30-something years, and I have never seen a get-up like you have.’ People come and say, ‘Thank you,’ … for putting smiles on the faces of so many.”

For more information about Casey and her pigs, go to The Pig Lady on Facebook.