Grunt moves on to a better life: a sty of his own and three other pigs to play with.

Grunt, the homeless, 1,000-pound porker whose new-digs-or-death dilemma made him a celebrity, took off for a pig sty of his very own early Saturday morning.

Traveling in a spacious, 16-foot trailer that normally holds four horses, Grunt left the Los Angeles County Animal Control Shelter in Carson bound for a 193-acre ranch in Ojai, where there are three other pigs for him to play with.

“Grunt has a two-acre fenced area by the pond reserved for him,” said Jerye Mooney, Los Angeles coordinator of the national Fund for Animals. The animal rights group got ranch owner Ozzy Osborn--a plumbing contractor, not the rock star--to adopt Grunt.

The Carson shelter took Grunt in nearly a month ago after Dee Keese was no longer able to keep him on her one-acre Palos Verdes Peninsula ranch. She has goats, horses, opossums and llamas, but zoning laws forbid swine, and neighbors complained. Earlier, Grunt was rescued from slaughter after being given away by the Rolling Hills Estates family that raised him from the time he was a piglet. The family moved and couldn’t take him.

Animal control officials said Grunt faced death unless adopted by someone, and that’s when Fund for Animals came to the rescue. Mooney said the first choice was to give Grunt to the Los Angeles County Fair as a mascot, but her group settled on the Osborn ranch, where the living will be much more genteel.

“Osborn will build him a special shelter and Mrs. Osborn’s hairdresser has offered grooming services,” Mooney said.

Grunt was taken to Ojai by Sunland animal handler Diana Smith, who owns the lovable pig featured in the movie “The Milagro Beanfield Wars.” Although shelter officials held up boards along the ramp to the trailer lest Grunt put up a fuss, he trotted quickly inside. Smith lured him with his favorite foods: strawberries and corn on the cob.

Animal control officer Lt. George Warfield said Grunt, who was penned near other barnyard animals, was a perfect guest. “He was real gentle and we had no problems,” he said. And Grunt’s celebrity boosted the adoption rate for the shelter’s homeless dogs and cats.

Said Warfield, “People would come in to see Grunt and walk out with other animals.”