Campaign to save Barry the water-hating pig from flooded field

A water-hating pig is having a swine of a time at his animal charity home because his field has been flooded.

Barry resides at Trindledown Farm in Great Shefford, near Newbury, and now only has space the size of a third of a tennis court to move about in.

The National Animal Welfare Trust, which runs the farm, has launched a campaign called Barry Can't Swim to raise £5,000 for vital ditch-digging.

The West Berkshire charity was previous flooded in 1997, 2013 and 2014.

Barry, a small Kunekune cross-breed, cannot even walk through water "a couple of inches high" and "squealed the place down" when staff tried to cool him down with water during a hot summer, Trindledown's manager Tracy Waldron said.

The four-year-old pig, who shares his field with a sheep called Bjork, is fronting the campaign to pay for 200 metres of ditches. A drainage company has been three times in the past week at a cost of £600 each time - a cost the charity cannot afford.

Ms Waldron said: "Built in the Lambourn Valley, Trindledown receives the overflow of water from higher farmland which runs through half our grazing fields, drowns both secure dog runs and halves the pig enclosure."

Other animals have been moved to higher ground but Barry "cannot be put with other field animals", Ms Waldron said.

She added: "Barry must be the only pig in the country that hates water!"