Road hogs: Pigs bring traffic to a standstill

The group of pigs brought traffic on the A920 Ellon to Pitmedden road. Picture: HEMEDIA

Farmers scrambled for two hours to stop the 40 pigs from hogging the A920 Ellon to Pitmedden road while they tried to round them up using gates as a barricade.

Administrative assistant, Laura Welsh, from Ellon, said she couldn’t believe her eyes as she drove along the road.

She said: “The wheels of the trailer transporting the pigs had clipped the curb and it took some damage as it overturned onto the road.

“The pigs made a break for freedom and ended up blocking the road so traffic couldn’t get through. There was quite a lot of them so I took a few pictures.

“I couldn’t go around and after waiting for quite a while I ended up having to abandon my car.

“The pigs were just wandering around, some of them were eating grass and drinking water from the puddles, it’s not something you see every day.

“Some of them were injured though, there was blood on a few of them and some were still inside the trailer and weren’t really moving.

“It took them a while to herd them up as the farmers had to bring gates out to block them in.”

Police were called to help and later confirmed no one had been injured during the incident.

A spokeswoman for Police Scotland said: “A tractor that was carrying a trailer with pigs overturned on the A920 Ellon to Pitmedden.

“The road had to be closed. It happened at 12.20pm and the road was reopened at 2.50pm. The animals were rounded up. No one was injured.

“We believe the owner arranged recovery and the uplift of the piglets.”

Local councillor Isobel Davidson said: “It was just a truckload of pigs that spilled out. It’s always concerning when there is an accident with live animals in case anyone is injured.

“You do worry about the safety of the animals. I’m not sure if any of the pigs were harmed or not.

“I think it was all cleared and the road was reopened.”