A home for Minty: the story of an orphaned boar

He wrapped the shivering and scarcely breathing hoglet in a blanket, put the car heater on at full blast and drove as fast as he could to Vale Wildlife Hospital at Beckford near Tewkesbury. His passenger moistened the hoglet’s lips with water and she made it barely alive to the hospital.

The hoglet, soon named Minty, was either the victim of the Forestry Commission’s cull or of a road traffic accident, as her mother had been killed and her siblings, starved of milk, had all died. This lone survivor was bottle fed with milk every two hours and put under an infrared lamp for heat. Miraculously she was alive the following morning. Now, at nearly four months old, Minty is a mischievous, playful and beautiful juvenile boar, weighing about 25 kilos. She has lost most of her stripes and is on the verge of adulthood.

She only had to be bottle fed for two days before she learned to lap milk from a saucer. She now has a large pen, a hay bed and a good-sized outside run. She sleeps and eats a lot now but is lonely for her own species as she is the only boar on the premises.

The hospital is looking after 370 wild animals at present and has treated 1550 casualties this year. They have bats, otters, polecats, hedgehogs, badgers, deer, foxes and rabbits as well as all sorts of birds and reptiles. Minty was originally kept company by foxes in the neighbouring pen but they have now gone back to the wild.

Jeff Wood, assistant manager, who looks after Minty, said it was proving a problem finding Minty a permanent home as she needs the company of her own species. She can never be released into the wild. After all the care she has received it would be tragic if she was shot in a cull that continues to take the lives of hundreds of boars every year.

BREAKING NEWS

Great news! As of yesterday, a permanent home has been found for Minty. Find out more about Minty’s life and what happens next on her Facebook page: Minty’s Progress – the Story of an Orphaned Wild Boar.

To read Minty’s full story, please visit the A Wild Life with Animals website.