 The pigs come from a commercial pig farm. They are a land race large white cross. They are commercially bred for meat, so they're not a research pig, they're a normal commercial pig. As soon as the pigs arrive here, we immediately have contact with them. They obviously arrive from a farm without a great deal of human contact. They come to a strange environment, different smells, different sounds, obviously slightly timid. We go in and just sit with them. We go in and sit down on the floor and wait for them to come up to us. We get them tame, get them friendly, so there's no stress involved at all in moving animal from its holding pen over to the operation theatre. We train them to go into a weight crate at an early age. We bring the weight crate into the pen, open up the doors and just let them investigate. Open the door, they'll invariably go straight into the weight crate, close the door and you have the pig. There are any stress at all of physically moving that pig. There are three pigs in this pen. They are very, very social creatures. We never let them be on their own. If any pig comes in on its own for any reason, we always make sure that a companion pig comes in with it. First thing in the morning is usually 8 o'clock. We'll come in and clean feed and clean out the pigs. The first thing is literally, is here our voice. I always say, morning girls, and as soon as they hear my voice, they recognise me and it's like, oh great, here we go, food. The food gets generally sprinkled around the pens so they can actually look for it. The natural thing is to forage for food. So you can sprinkle it around the pen for them and they'll forage for the food. While they're eating, that's when they're cleaned out because they'll be eating and leave you alone to clean out the pen. If you've had invasive heart surgery, normally that pig will then stay in recovery in the theatre for 24 hours and we will collect the pig two days later. After the surgery, it will be the anesthetist and a technician in the TBRC will be with that pig overnight. When that pig comes back, we'll introduce her back into the home pen. Of course, if once they have come back, we'll give them that extra bit of TLC and check them more regularly throughout the day, take temperatures, make sure the wound is clean, it's not weeping. If there is any problem, obviously contact the NBS. There is one pig in this pen that has had heart surgery. She's now around 70 kilos and she had heart surgery when she was about 20 kilos. She has had a full bypass in the heart. You cannot help but get attached to these animals if we do this job because we love animals. Even the length of time I've been in 19 years, I've done this job since 1978 and I'll still now and again get lump in the throat when I have to take a pig over for the last time. The actual research that's going on with these animals I think is absolutely fantastic. It is advancing our knowledge of life-saving for humans, for future humans. The pig is an ideal model for this. Now and again, there's been things on local television about the research for the heart research that's going on at Bristol University and it makes me feel proud when I see that and I'm part of that. I'm probably at the bottom of the chain but without me, the surgeons can do their job. I like to think I make their job easy by getting these animals friendly, tame, after care etc. I'm extremely proud to be part of this work.