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MARANA, Ariz. — An hour north of Tucson, you'll find Mary Schanz, the President and Co-Founder of the Ironwood Pig Sanctuary. She has a few decided employees, the occasional volunteer, and 675 pigs.
"It used to be most of our pigs came from homes where people wanted to give them up, because they didn't know what they were getting into. Really, they didn't do their homework, and they didn't know what pigs were like," Mary explained."But now, we can't even take those pigs anymore. Because they're all strays."
Other times pigs end up as strays because they've escaped, since their owners don't understand what it takes to keep them secure. In one case, Mary says they rescued 26 pigs from one man's home. She says they had been sitting in more than a foot of mud. Some of the bigger pigs were laying on a stock tank on top of eachother, with some of the little boys crying and trying to crawl up on top of them. She says the owner threatened to fight them when they rescued the pigs, but couldn't.
"People are told they're going to weigh 30 to 40 pounds, but that simply isn't true, Mary explained."In order to keep them that small, they're starved. And they come to us with terrible legs and bones, because they never got the proper nutrition."A lot ot the pigs that come to Ironwood end up needing serious medical treatment. Some have been attacked by dogs or coyotes. Some have horrible genetics from bad breeding, like one that was missing an entire shoulder.
We asked Mary what the call to action is, since clearly something needs to change, and said there's really one major message they try to send.
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