Pigs
Pigs
Pigs are thought to be as smart as a 4-year-old human. 100 million are raised and slaughtered in the U.S. each year.
Mutilation
Piglets are typically removed from their mothers when they are about a month old. The following procedures are then performed on them without any pain relievers or anesthesia, even though it would only cost about 1 penny per baby pig.
- Castration: Read carefully, boys. A worker slices into a piglet’s scrotum and pulls out his testicles. This is done because people who eat pork complain of “boar taint” in meat from intact males.
- Ear-notching: The equivalent of a hole punch is used to remove large chunks of their ears for identification.
- Tail-docking: Piglets have their tails cut off to reduce tail biting, a habit that occurs when these highly-intelligent animals become bored and frustrated in stressful factory farm conditions.
- Tooth Clipping: The incisor teeth are cut off with pliers so that they can’t cause injury to themselves or other pigs when the extreme confinement drives them insane.
Cruel Living Conditions
Pigs spend their lives in overcrowded, filthy warehouses. After a piglet has been sufficiently mutilated, it is moved to a “battery cage,” which get stacked one on top of the other. The waste from the top falls on the piglets below. When these cages are outgrown, the piglets are placed in cramped pens, crowded with many other piglets, until they are large enough for slaughter (which usually occurs around 6 months of age). Overcrowding, poor ventilation and filth cause rampant disease. Because of this, 70% of pigs are suffering from pneumonia by the time they are sent to the slaughterhouse. To protect against such diseases caused by filthy and cramped living conditions and to increase their growth rate, pigs are fed doses of antibiotics.
Breeding Sows
Sows are treated as piglet making machines. After being artificially impregnated, the sows are confined in gestation crates that are so small that they cannot turn around or even lie down comfortably. Gestation lasts 4 months and when a sow is ready to give birth, she is moved to another equally small crate. She will often suffer from sores on her shoulders and knees from not being able to lie down. After giving birth, the sows nurse their young for 2-3 weeks. The piglets are taken away to be mutilated and fattened up and the sow is re-impregnated. When she is no longer deemed a productive breeder, she is sent to slaughter.
Transport & Slaughter
To get the pigs into the transport trucks, workers may beat them on their sensitive noses and backs or stick electric prods up in their rectums. They are crammed so tightly in transport trucks that they struggle to get air. They are not given any food or water during the entire journey, which can often be hundreds of miles. An estimated 1 million pigs die during transport alone.
Once at the slaughterhouse, the pigs are offloaded. Those who are too ill or injured to walk off the truck (“downers”) are kicked, beaten, struck with electric prods or dragged off the trucks. Once inside, the pigs are supposed to be stunned and rendered unconscious, in accordance with the federal Humane Slaughter Act. Stunning is often imprecise and, often, fully conscious pigs are hung upside down while a worker tries to slash its throat. If the worker misses, the pig is carried to the next station, the scalding tank, where it will be boiled fully alive and conscious. (The pigs are dunked into a scalding tank to remove their hair and soften their skin.) This happens all the time!
