Yorkshire Pigs - HO Scale

A white breed from an English county

The pigs that the English-speaking world names after the county of Yorkshire are better known elsewhere as Large White. They are recognized by their uniformly light bristle and upright ears, and since the nineteenth century they have formed the backbone of meat production in Europe as well as overseas. For a model what matters is that the light color of the animals works as a contrast: on brown bedding or in a dark paddock the herd is visible even from a distance.

Twelve pieces, three sizes

The package holds twelve animals divided into sows, pigs in fattening and piglets. It is exactly the difference in size that makes a paddock alive, because a real herd never keeps only one age group together. A high number of pieces in one package is an advantage with animal sets, since a small paddock is filled by one set and no need to buy a second one arises.

A pig pen that looks like an operation

The most convincing thing is to leave the animals divided by size: sows with piglets in one pen, the fattening pigs in another. Real farms separate animals exactly like that and a viewer recognizes it even when he cannot explain why. Around a trough the ground tends to be trampled into mud while elsewhere it stays dry, which on a model is suggested with gloss varnish over a small area. The white pieces deserve a slight dirtying underneath; a perfectly clean pig in a wet paddock reads as a toy, whereas a dirty belly and legs set the scene in reality at once. A low fence of small boards will in the end keep the herd together better than any glue.