By Cindy Callender
Over 360,000 pigs are raised for slaughter in Victoria each year, most under factory farming conditions. Pigs, whose intelligence is comparable to that of dogs, cannot fulfil their needs in intensive piggeries.
Grossly inadequate space allowances means pigs are forced to lie in their own dung and being naturally clean animals, this causes them distress. The sow is kept in a metal cage for months at a time, unable to take a step forward or backward.
Some pigs are also tethered in their stalls by a small length of chain. This restriction of movement saves on food costs by reducing energy expended. Tethering, although not recommended in the Code of Practice, is not illegal.
The lack of exercise and the hard floor surfaces of concrete or metal combine to produce a variety of foot, leg and joint problems. The close confinement of the pigs, in general, also leads them to behave aggressively towards each other.
The inability to fulfil their needs leads pigs to constantly repeat movements such as head-waving and bar-biting. These constantly repeated movements are called "stereotypes" and are caused by frustration of the pig's natural nesting, rooting and foraging instincts.
W.M. Thorpe, a behavioral ethologist states: "Though domestic animals are selectively bred, the observation of the behaviour has shown they are essentially still what they are in the wild, with innate behaviour patterns and needs which are still present even if the animal has never known natural conditions."
Mutilations are also a common practice in the intensive piggery. Shortly after birth, piglets have their needle teeth clipped and their tails docked (cut off) without anesthetic or veterinary attention. This is to prevent cannibalism caused by the frustration of not being able to search for food.
The process
Piglets are born weighing about 1.4 kg. They remain with their sow for four weeks and are weaned when weighing approximately 6.5 kg. The weaned sow is mated again about five days later. On average, each sow produces 2.3 litters per year.
The weaned piglets spend seven weeks in the weaner shed, reaching a weight of about 30 kg. They are then moved to a grower house in which they spend a further seven weeks, reaching 60 kg, only to be transferred again to a finisher shed where, for another seven weeks, they are fattened to be ready for market at 95-100 kg. The life of a breeding sow is just as miserable. The grossly inadequate space allowance for an adult female pig in individual stalls is 0.6m by 1.8m, hardly larger than herself. This is where the pregnant sow spends half of her life, alternating with an equally small farrowing stall when she is suckling her young. The life of a sow is most pathetic as she spends her entire life unable to turn around or walk more than two steps.
The economics of piggeries
The key to the system is speed. Pigs must be produced and grown as quickly as possible to maximise profit to the owner. Pigs suffer in factory farms purely for financial gain as the welfare of individual pigs is sacrificed to fast turnover.
Animal Liberation believes that large-scale intensive farming of animals does not allow either the time or money to ensure a high degree of concern for animal welfare. The emphasis is purely on profits. Pigs are merely "units" on a food production line and their welfare is only important to the extent of being measured in terms of what percentage of "units" the piggery can afford to lose.
Economically, mortality rates of between 15% to 20% can be tolerated.
Worker violence towards pigs
Pressure to achieve maximum output, appalling working conditions and the strength and occasional resistance of individual pigs, can breed anger among workers leading to violence towards the pigs.
Beatings in piggeries are most likely to occur while pigs are being moved from one section of the farm to another.
One witness who worked at a piggery has observed sows being brutally kicked with full force and hit in the head and body with a swinging gate. Pregnant sows and piglets are not spared this brutality. According to the witness, it is not unusual for piglets to be thrown.
This violence was described as completely unnecessary.
The witness also described the mating of reluctant sows like "witnessing a rape".
Drugs and transport
Disease and a lack of growth are problems which occur when animals are closely confined together. Drugs are fed to the pigs in large quantities as a way of controlling these problems. Some drugs stay in the body even after slaughter and processing to eventually be consumed by humans.
Long distances are travelled to slaughterhouses. In summer, particularly when the transport vehicle stops, the pigs scramble furiously over one another to reach the air vents. Because they are unable to sweat, their body temperature soars. They also pile up in
winter to keep warm. Either way, deaths often occur from heart attack ies being deposited in pet food bins at the slaughterhouse.
Commercial slaughter
Around five million pigs are slaughtered in Australia each year. Due to the stress of anticipation caused by animals smelling the blood and fear and hearing the sounds of other animals being slaughtered, and due to the fact that there are always failures in the stunning of some animals, no mass commercial slaughter of livestock can be humane.
The slaughter begins as the first dozen pigs are driven into the stunning pen. Some urinate with fear as blood and mucous fly from the pig's snout. The eyes of the pig close and the front legs stiffen when the stunner opens the tongs to stun the animal. Meanwhile, the others huddle against the entrance with their rumps towards the stunner, heads bowed.
The rules applying to slaughter, in an attempt to make it humane, are very easily bent or ignored.
If you would like to help the Intensive Piggeries Campaign, please ring Shirley Rees or Cindy Callender on (03) 328-3603 during office hours or write to PO Box 12838 A'Beckett Street, Melbourne Vic 3000.