Woman sells real-life piggy banks made out of taxidermy piglets
'It had to be altered, cut in half, hollowed out, and the insides finished.'
A woman has found one way to bring home the bacon by making real-life piggy banks out of baby piglets.
Rachel Lewis, from Chandler, Arizona, US, was a hairdresser until four years ago when she took up a class in taxidermy.
The 38-year-old has not looked back since and now works as a full-time taxidermist.
She first had the idea to turn a piglet into a piggy bank around a year ago but didn’t act upon the decision until May 2023.
A queue of people have pre-ordered the unusual item and Rachel has promised to make one for one of her children who ‘fell in love’ with putting coins inside.
Rachel had always dreamt of being a mortician from a young age and has helped her hunter husband clean the skulls of dead animals in the past.
She says taxidermy gives animals a second lease of life but did acknowledge the young animals deaths as ‘sad’.
The mum explained the process and said: ‘It was really labour intensive to make. Instead of making a traditional foam form it had to be altered, cut in half, hollowed out, and the insides finished.
‘It took a little more planning than a traditional mount.
‘I thought a piggy bank would be really cute to do.
‘I tried to figure out how to make it work where it would hold the weight of change and be fully functional.
‘I have more than I plan on doing, there will be more piggy banks coming. I have a larger pig that I plan on doing as a piggy bank too.
‘I’ve sold other little piglets which I taxidermy for $350. I listed it high because I didn’t mind keeping it, but obviously someone else fell in love with it.’
Rachel explained some of the places she gets her pigs from and the way in which she thinks her taxidermy gives the animals a new lease of life.
‘Most of my specimens I get from local farms around me that have farm deaths, so they’re stillborn,’ she said.
‘I’ve got a few. Unfortunately, I guess it happens a lot with pigs and goats that there are stillborns.
‘I think with pigs a lot of the time their mum rolls over and crushes them.
‘It’s sad. The farmers said they would just bury them on the property or that they’d just be waste.
‘I feel like they get to live a second life, especially this little piggy in particular who someone fell in love with. It’s kinda cool.’
For the future Rachel wants to experiment more with taxidermy and create taxidermist objects like jewellery boxes or ‘secret stash’ compartments.
‘I was experimenting with different things that other artists do, like ring boxes or pencil cases and things,’ she said.
‘Now, my sister and I can do projects like that.
‘We have some ideas to do goat piggy banks. It’s just anything we can really come up with like little hidden compartments in some taxidermy pieces like stash jars or jewellery boxes.
‘We definitely have a few things we’re working on right now.’
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