‘Waffles’ the school pig off to vegan home

Waffles the pig with Mauriceville School friends. PHOTO/ELISA VORSTER

ELISA VORSTER
[email protected]

Waffles the pig is heading over the hill – but don’t worry, that’s not a euphemism for a trip to the works. The friendly pig has been a huge part of Mauriceville School life since it wandered onto the school grounds in February. But teacher Lucy Miller said it was now time Waffles moved to a new home in Kaitoke, Upper Hutt.

“We love her to death, we would love to keep her but it’s fairer to her if she’s on a farm.”

And people will be pleased to know Waffles won’t be appearing on anyone’s plate of waffles, as the new owner is vegan.

“We had quite a few people interested in her but we didn’t know if they were going to eat her or not.

“We would rather she’s going to someone who really wants her.”

After the pig turned up, pupils learned how to care for it, and involve Waffles in every activity they can, including reading to it, and playing games of tag.

“Some of our kids are lacking in some social skills and they really bonded with her,” Mrs Miller said. However, now winter had arrived, it was hard to spend as much time with the pig, and part of its enclosure had to be taken down due to it being deemed unsafe.

The school couldn’t afford to put up new fencing, and were limited to where the pig could go, as it had already escaped once before and couldn’t be left with the children unsupervised.

Although both the pupils and teachers were going to miss Waffles, they were all happy their plucky porcine pal was going to live on a large family farm with dogs and miniature horses.

Mrs Miller said the pupils were inspired to write haiku poems about Waffles, and this one was her favourite:

“Waffles is bacon/ But Mrs Miller would cry/ We can’t eat Waffles.”