KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 22 — It’s officially the Year of the Horse, but residents of a Malaysian home got a different kind of visitor during Chinese New Year.

Eric Sua captured the unusual spectacle on video and shared it on Facebook yesterday, showing the boars, both juveniles and adults, wandering boldly in an unnamed residential area.

The horde or boars stopped right outside a gate where they were greeted by barks and moments later, slices of bread were tossed overhead in their direction.

In a caption accompanying the video, Sua wrote only one line in Chinese, which translates to: “They ran out from there… so many …”.

In the video, an unseen woman could be heard saying in an awestruck voice in English that she had never seen such a sight.

“Oh wow, they’re so tame already, they’re pets already,” she said.

In reply, another unseen speaker disclosed in the video that the boars numbered over a dozen and would pay daily visits at around the same time seeking and being given food.

Social media users flooded the comments with reactions ranging from playful to serious.

One Facebook user remarked in Chinese that the boars were celebrating the festive occasion like humans: “come out to celebrate the New Year and ask for red envelopes”.

“Thank you for feeding their whole family. good people and good things to come,” said one Facebooker going by the name Chew Vivian.

Winnie Ng shared that she had heard of a man who regularly fed wild boars behind his one and a few years later, won a RM12 million jackpot.

Phang Joon Foong claimed that wild boars were extinct in Sarawak and joked that the price for one kilogramme in the market could easily fetch RM80.

“Best not to feed it. Wild mountain boars will leave feces near your home. Bacteria/viruses will spread through the air. Strong body resistance will be fine, but children/old people will get sick easily, and the whole village will suffer,” Jones Lim said.

Wildlife experts caution against feeding wild boars because of disease and safety risks, but for this household and thousands of social media viewers, the festive intrusion was a hilarious and unexpected start to the lunar new year – turning the Year of the Horse into a surprisingly porcine affair.