Factory Farming:Introduction Poultry Cattle Sheep Aquatic Animals Bees
Factory Farming Pigs
"Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages."
Thomas A. Edison
When it comes to having a central nervous system, and the ability to feel pain, hunger, and thirst, a rat is a pig is a dog is a boy.
Ingrid Newkirk
"[Pigs] have the cognitive ability to be quite sophisticated. Even more
so than dogs and certainly three-year-olds.."
Professor Donald Broom of Cambridge University Veterinary School
Factory Farming Pigs
"Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages."
Thomas A. Edison
When it comes to having a central nervous system, and the ability to feel pain, hunger, and thirst, a rat is a pig is a dog is a boy.
Ingrid Newkirk
"[Pigs] have the cognitive ability to be quite sophisticated. Even more
so than dogs and certainly three-year-olds.."
Professor Donald Broom of Cambridge University Veterinary School
Also from PETA:
The suffering of Pigs on Factory Farms
http://www.peta.org/videos/the-suffering-of-pigs-on-factory-farms/
The above videos show life in a factory farm, if you can watch them please do so.
Warning shocking images of the cruel treatment of animals
The natural life span of a pig is ten to fifteen years.
In nature pigs are clean animals, pigs do not perspire, they wallow in mud to keep themselves cool although they prefer to cool down in clean fresh water
Although it is not common knowledge, pigs are highly intelligent creatures. They are affectionate, protective of their young, playful social animals and they suffer greatly from the factory farming system. Studies show us that pigs have a long memory and have the ability to focus on specific tasks even better than some primates. Of course such knowledge would not be in the interest of the meat industry which would not wish people to know they are eating an intelligent being, not to imply of course that the cruelty carried out on farm animals and other animals who are regularly abused by the consensus of society is justified if an animal is less intelligent.
Before reading about the horrors of factory farming as they relate to pigs, do first read and consider the following. In the preface of his book 'The Pig Who Sang to the Moon,' wherein the author reveals the complex emotions of these much used and abused creatures, Jeffrey Masson tells us about a pig famous with children and local residents, who lived on the beach of a coastal town in New Zealand. Piglet, the name given to this remarkable animal, likes to go for a swim in the early hours of the morning when the sea is calm, and she enjoys having her tummy rubbed by children who sit by her side. She is known to be a kind sensitive and intelligent creature, clean, placid, friendly even towards strangers, her natural emotions are plainly obvious.
She is sensitive to music, particularly on the beach at night during a full moon, she likes to hear the violin played. One night she made the sweetest sounds as though she was singing to the moon. Referring to piglet’s singing Jeffery Masson writes: It is another reason to believe that many animals - pigs foremost amongst them - may have access to feelings humans have not known. Perhaps if we listen carefully enough to the songs that piglet and her cousins sing at night to the moon, we may yet learn about emotions that could bring us to a new and utterly undreamed of delight.”
Treating these wonderful creatures with such cruelty, neglect and blatant abuse is denying them their full potential and us the delight of really knowing these sensitive and clearly sentient beings.
Pigs are highly social animals and originally lived in woodlands, they built nests to care for their young and foraged for nuts and seeds.
Pigs are excellent mothers and communicate with their youngsters; shortly after being born piglets soon move to their mother's head, touch noses, vocalise and then begin suckling. The mother and her piglets develop a strong bond, the mother remains constantly by their side for the whole of the first week. Mothers are known to "Sing" to their piglets, it is believed that she does this to let them know that her milk is flowing.
In the wild pigs spend hours playing together and enjoy lying in the sun. Many people who understand pigs know them as sensitive, highly intelligent creatures, loyal and friendly and most certainly comparable to dogs. In recent years there was a report in the media about a farmer who gave up pig farming because he became too distressed when his pigs went to market as he developed a fondness for them, perhaps he realised just how intelligent, sociable, friendly and very like us they are.
Contrary to popular belief pigs are clean animals and in natural circumstances they will avoid fouling their living space. In factory farms pigs are forced to spend their miserable lives standing or lying in their own waste as you will see from the photograph further down. In the environment of the factory farm their need for company, to investigate their environment, play, root, forage and mother their young in the way nature intended are all denied them.
Another misconception of pigs as greedy animals also could not be further from the truth; unlike your cat or dog in natural circumstances pigs will not gorge themselves on food even if the supply is unlimited. Pigs it seems know when to stop eating and never dangerously overeat, which is something of course that many of us are not capable of doing.
Read more information concerning the sentience of pigs: Animal Sentience: Pigs
In the UK 9 million pigs are raised, intensively, that is factory farmed, and each year in the USA about 100 million pigs are similarly raised and slaughtered annually. Half of breeding sows are kept indoors never seeing the light of day - the only time she will do so is when she is herded into a truck to transport her to the slaughter house - confined in barred cages so small they can hardly turn round or lie down comfortably as you can see from the photos of pregnant pigs confined in gestation crates which appears further down. Sometimes pigs are tethered by a strong and heavy chain attached to their neck and body. Damage to the unfortunate creatures from such methods of confinement is significant and results in lameness, leg, back and hip problems and sores from the rubbing of the tether and against the cramped cages.
Like sheep and other farm animals painful and distressing mutilation occurs: 75 per cent of all piglets have their teeth crushed and tails cut off without anaesthetics or pain relievers. Like tiny lambs the tails of piglets are docked, cut off to minimize tail biting. More about this later. Aberrant behaviours such as tail biting do not occur in their natural environment and is the result of these highly intelligent creatures being kept in close confinement, deprived of space to move and mental stimulation. Pigs go insane as a result of a lack of mental stimulation, as do all intelligent animals in similar circumstances including ourselves. Notches are taken out of pigs ears for the purposes of identification, again this along with all of the above mutilations takes place without the use of anaesthetics and painkillers.
In factory farms each sow, female pig, is subjected to a continuous cycle of impregnation, she is impregnated for the first time when she is only six to eight months old, mostly by artificial insemination. In the wild she will give birth to four or five piglets; in the environment of the factory farm as a result of selective breeding she will have as many as ten or more babies each pregnancy and she will have more than 20 piglets each year. She is for all intents and purposes a breeding machine, the reproduction of her kind being her sole function until she is too old or too exhausted from the round of continuous pregnancies to do so, after which she is killed at about 3 or 4 years old. By this time she will be without exception lame and in pain.
Look at the photo below, here is where she will exist during much of her pregnancy, I cannot use the word live for this is no life for a sociable, intelligent clean creature as the pig or indeed any animal. This hideous contraption is a gestation crate, a small pen approximately two feet wide. The crates which are only a few inches wider and longer than the sow herself are barren, there is little if any straw of course, straw being too expensive, the use of which would effect profit margins. Confined here she will not be able to turn round or even comfortably lie down. It is here she will give birth.
Pigs confined in Gestation crates
Credit: Photograph:
Pigs in gestation crates on Flickr - Photo Sharing! by flick user:
Flickr: Farm Sanctuary's Photostream
Licensed under
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 Generic 6
Female pigs exploited for breeding are confined most of their lives in 'gestation crates'. As you can see these crates are so small that they cannot even turn around or lie down comfortably. Here they stand or lie, as in the photo above, in their own excrement. The pigs' basic needs are denied, and they experience severe physical and psychological disorders.
Credit: Photograph:
Pigs in gestation crates on Flickr - Photo Sharing! by flick user:
Flickr: Farm Sanctuary's Photostream
Licensed under
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 Generic 6
Female pigs exploited for breeding are confined most of their lives in 'gestation crates'. As you can see these crates are so small that they cannot even turn around or lie down comfortably. Here they stand or lie, as in the photo above, in their own excrement. The pigs' basic needs are denied, and they experience severe physical and psychological disorders.
A sow in a farrowing crate
https://www.flickr.com/photos/farmsanctuary1/2163491564/in/album-72157603624992497/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/farmsanctuary1/2163491564/in/album-72157603624992497/
Sow and piglets in a Farrowing crate
A few days before giving birth, sows are moved to farrowing
crates where they are able to lie down, with an attached crate
from which their piglets can nurse.
Photos: Farm Sanctuary :
A sow and her piglets on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
Creative commons license:
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 Generic
See more photos from Farm Sanctuary's Flickr album of the horrendous condition
of factory farmed pigs.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/farmsanctuary1/albums/72157603624992497/with/2163491564/
A few days before giving birth, sows are moved to farrowing
crates where they are able to lie down, with an attached crate
from which their piglets can nurse.
Photos: Farm Sanctuary :
A sow and her piglets on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
Creative commons license:
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 Generic
See more photos from Farm Sanctuary's Flickr album of the horrendous condition
of factory farmed pigs.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/farmsanctuary1/albums/72157603624992497/with/2163491564/