Two obese pet pigs blinded by their own fat rolls for two years have had their sight restored following possibly the first surgery of its kind in New Zealand at Tauranga's Holistic Vets.

Devoted pig owner Preetha David brought her two pigs, Piggy Sue and Lulu, from their Cambridge home to the city last month for Holistic Vets director Liza Schneider and visiting international pig specialist Dr John Carr to perform the unique surgery.

Dr Liza Schneider with Lulu under anesthetic, using a special tube.

The pigs were sedated using a dog and cat anaesthetic machine with special tubes John created to ensure they could still breathe properly, says Liza.

She says Preetha had been planning the surgery for two years and contacted her clinic after seeing Holistic Vets' television show.

'When they were four years old the pigs became overweight and this caused them to develop enlarged skin folds over their eyes,” says Liza.

'Despite efforts to get them to lose weight and hopefully help to restore some vision, they have been blind for two years and have found their way around by smell, feel and sound.”

Preetha consulted John, a veterinarian, and flew him to New Zealand to assist in performing corrective surgery on August 30.

Lisa says the surgery was definitely not a run of the mill procedure.

'It's very unique for us – we've done [surgery on] the occasional pig but we certainly haven't done cosmetic surgery on piggies before,” says Liza, who led the procedure assisted by Dr Tara Buxton and three vet nurses, under John's guidance.

'While we do similar this surgery on cats and dogs doing it on a pig was really different and certainly awesome and amazing to do with the help of specialist like John.”

Lisa shared emails planning the surgery with John but met him on the day.

'He gave us a breakdown of what we needed to do and as a team we planned it and I actually did the surgery.”

Lisa says one of the tricky things with pigs is anaesthetics can be really difficult with them.

'They have some negative effects under anaesthetic and because they've got quite a long and narrow mouth it's very difficult to get a special tube down to their windpipe like we do easily with most other animals.

'So it's really hard to keep them under anaesthetic, but John's come up with this technique where you put two tubes in their little nostrils and use the dog and cat anaesthetic machine – it worked beautifully.”

Piggy Sue's surgery was complicated as she has a condition called micro opthalmia – or abnormally small eyes – making it more difficult to restore her vision.

Lulu's surgery was relatively straightforward, taking about an hour.

The eye surgery involved removing fat from the pigs' eyelids and a special surgery to fold the eyelids backwards so they don't droop back over the eye.

'Especially with Piggy Sue, as she's got such little eyes, it was a matter of making sure the eyelashes don't rub in her eyes and being able to fold the skin outwards and take off the excess.”

Liza she isn't aware of this surgery taking place in New Zealand before.

'It's possible but I guess thing is so few people are so devoted to their pet pigs like Preetha is – so I imagine it's not commonplace.”

Each pig weights 120kg each, so Preetha hired a horse trailer to bring them to Tauranga.

'We sedated them in the trailer and once Piggy Sue was sleeping we all rolled her onto the stretcher and pushed her into the surgery room – but we had to make a makeshift room downstairs because there was no way we could get the pig upstairs to our usual surgery.

'Once all six of us loaded the pigs into the room we hooked them up to the anaesthetic machine, gave them proper anaesthetic and connected them fluids and did the surgery.

'Once finished – same story – we stretchered them back to the horse trailer for recovery.”

It's expected Lulu will have full vision permanently restored, but further surgery may need to be performed on Piggy Sue in six-12 months depending on her progress.

'The pigs recovered well and were taken back to their home in Cambridge the same day.”

Liza says the pigs would have been able to see straight way once they woke up.

The surgery is relative costly because of the pigs' weight increasing the expense of drugs, the anaesthetic machine, surgery time and flying John out for it.

'But it was not too much to ask Preetha – she just wanted the best for her girls.”

Preetha told SunLive she's had the pigs for five years, since they were six weeks old.

She spent two years planning the surgery.

'I wasn't able to find a vet who was willing either do it for me or even lend the equipment.”

Preetha says the pigs are much-loved family pets and she didn't mind paying $7000 for the surgery.

'We are very much [attached] to these pigs; they are our little babies. We do have kids of our own and other animals but yeah.

'It's a quality of life thing – if they're not able to see and they do live up to 15-16 years if looked after well and they were sort of walking into fences and things.”

Preetha says she's happy with the outcome of the surgery and was amazed to see her pets' first reactions to regaining their sight.

'When they could see on the first day they couldn't stand the light because their eyes had been closed for such a long time.

'They were quite disorientated but very happy to look around all the while – and they had loads to say about it.

'We're so grateful to Liza and her team – they've been amazing.”

The vet and nurse team with Lulu recovering.