Play with adorable pigs, relieve stress, and support a great cause!
You may have heard of cat cafes, or owl cafes, or even hedgehog cafes, but have you heard of pig cafes?
Tokyo’s newest animal attraction is sort of like a pig cafe, but it is so much more. Known as Pignic Farm & Cafe, it prefers to label itself as an “immersive farm experience”, though it shares some features with your favorite animal cafe.
Pignic Farm & Cafe opened in June in Akiruno City, which is a part of the Tokyo municipal area but is about an hour’s train ride from the city center. As it’s so remote, it offers a nice retreat from the hustle and bustle of the city, a place to enjoy tasty food and play with some adorable pigs in the midst of beautiful nature.
The facility is composed of outdoor and indoor spaces covering over 6,000 square meters (67,000 square feet). On sunny days you can play with some of their 20 adorable pigs outside in their pasture. If you like, you can sit down on the ground and one of the friendly pigs will climb into your lap for scratches and snuggles.
The pigs are also allowed to run around freely inside the cafe area, too. Enjoy a delicious menu of coffee and sweets while watching them run and play, or have your afternoon tea out on the terrace as you watch them in the pasture.
Like many animal cafes, Pignic Farm & Cafe is meant to be a place of relaxation and comfort, though this petting zoo-like experience has the added advantage of being outside the limits of big city life. Micro pigs, which are smaller even than mini pigs with a maximum weight of 20 kilograms (44 pounds), also make excellent therapy animals because of their friendly personalities and lively energy. Pignic Farm & Cafe’s pigs are trained to do basic tricks like “Sit” and “Shake”, so they’re very intelligent, too!
But Pignic Farm & Cafe isn’t just a petting zoo or a pig cafe; they’re making great efforts to support the local community as well. For one, they support families who want to adopt a micro pig by offering education and resources for raising healthy and happy pigs. They also intend to offer a micro pig hotel and are currently selling healthy and nutritious micro pig food.
The facility is also working hard to incorporate community outreach into its mission. Recently, they hosted a special needs student from Akiruno’s Toritsu Akiruno Gakuen school for hands-on work experience, where she learned how to take care of the pigs, clean the facility, and operate a cash register. Though the student was nervous and shy going in, by the end of the experience, she was cheerful and confident and said she felt better about graduating from school and entering the workforce.
Following the success of this trial run, the staff at Pignic Farm & Cafe decided to open their cafe to local middle school students who want some hands-on work experience. They’re also planning to invite daycare centers that cannot yet open their doors due to the pandemic to borrow the facility free of charge and bring their students to play with the pigs. Finally, they are working on plans to bring micro pigs to assisted living centers for senior therapy.
While there are two micro pig cafes in Tokyo, one in Meguro and one in Harajuku, if you want to support a great cause and get away from the stress of being in a big city, then why not consider visiting Pignic Farm & Cafe? You’ll get to play and cuddle with some adorable little piggies, eat some nice food, and contribute to the facility’s efforts to support its local community. In our book, it doesn’t get much better than that!
Facility Information
pignic farm&café
Tokyo-to Akiruno-shi Tokura 833-1
東京都あきる野市戸倉833−１
Hours: 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. on weekends, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on weekdays
Reservations required
Website
Source: PR Times (1, 2)
Top image: PR Times
Insert images: PR Times
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