Mipig is the latest animal cafe to offer guests a chance to pet adorable animals while sipping tea and eating dessert.
Animal lovers in Japan can already chow down with cats, hang out with hedgehogs and sip coffee with owls. Now, residents and tourists alike can add eating desserts with little pigs to their animal cafe bucket lists.
Mipig Cafe in Tokyo's Meguro ward is one of the first to offer guests the chance to drink tea with teacup pigs. The little piggies are between 2 and 4 months old and weigh less than 11 pounds, according to the cafe.
Also known as micropigs, they are popular with pet owners and celebrities alike.
But as cute as they are, they are a lot of work — and they don't stay little for long. So-called micropigs are often just baby pot-bellied pigs that can grow to between 100 and 150 pounds, according to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals International (SPCA), while others are inbred to be smaller, leading to "genetic disorders, short life spans and a host of health problems."
And although pigs are social, curious and intelligent creatures, they need a lot of exercise, socialization and space to thrive, which is often why many pigs are abandoned when they get too big, the SPCA says.
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