The month-long Pig Brother event has come to an end and the Tamworth pig, named after UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown, has been declared the winner.
Set up as a fund raising spoof of the Channel Four game show sensation that was Big Brother, the organisers explained that five pigs would remain in residence at a custom built sty near Cheddar, Somerset, from which one would be evicted every week until a winner remained.
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More than 5.3m people in 45 countries have logged onto the website over the past four weeks, to watch the action through a series of sty cams.
Members of the public, who could bet through the William Hill
bookmaker, online or over the telephone, voted the unlucky pigs out of the sty.
Brown, a female pig, won the battle by just 240 votes after being left with Portillo pig in a dramatic week-long show down.
Proceeds from the bets placed have raised thousands of pounds for farming communities devastated by the foot and mouth crisis, and the money will be distributed among four primary charities; the Royal Agricultural Benevolent Institute (RABI), the newly formed Farm Crisis Network (FCN), the Rural Stress Information Network (RSIN) and the Samaritans.
The event organiser, organic farmer Richard Counsell, told Ananova: “The whole thing has been a great success. We’ve hopefully made a lot of money for the farmers and had a good laugh as well.”
As rare breeds, all the evicted pigs will be kept for breeding, and according to the Pig Brother website: “Sources close to the family have confirmed that Brown Pig has been promised to a sanctuary in the Brecon Beacons.”
The game was hosted online at www.pigbrother.co.uk
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