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Animal Place: PORCINE PRISONERS: The truth behind the 'other white meat'

Download our information sheets (PDF):
Porcine Prisoners   The Real Price of Pork

Bacon. Pork chops. What pictures and sounds do these words conjure up in your mind?

The "Rape Rack"

Female pigs kept for breeding are confined in tiny stalls in which they can only lie down and stand up. Periodically, a male pig is allowed access to the stalls. His purpose is to mate with the sows. Once pregnant, the female is moved to a "gestation stall" that measures about 2' x 6'. Here, she cannot turn around or move about. She may also be tethered to the front of the stall by means of a chain around her neck to insure that she can hardly move at all.

Assembly Line Swine

When the female pig is ready to give birth, she is moved to yet an even smaller pen called the farrowing crate. Here, she is forced to deliver her babies on a concrete floor with no bedding. She has no room to move in this crate. Pigs, like many other animals, have strong, innate nesting behavior, but the barren concrete floor completely stymies this. Mom gives birth to her babies, the new born babies crawl about on the concrete floor to find their mother, but she will never nuzzle them. The piglets spend several weeks here before they are moved to a "nursery". At this point, the mother pig is separated from her piglets and eventually put back into the "rape rack" to start the cycle of pregnancy again.

Such close confinement leads to boredom and stress, manifesting itself as "vices" such as bar chewing, repetitive body movements and picking on each other.


No Anesthesia

The piglets are "processed" by having their ears notched for identification; a hole punched in the ears for tags; some of their teeth removed; their tails cut off; and the males are castrated. No anesthesia is used for any of this! The nurseries in which the piglets live consist of cages, sometimes stacked three high. From here, the piglets are moved into "finishing" pens where as many as possible are crowded together to increase profits. This crowding leads to fighting and injuries and continual stress and intense boredom.

 

Going to Market?

When the pigs reach "market" weight at about six months of age, they are forced onto trucks and hauled many miles to a slaughterhouse. There, amidst the screaming of their companions, they are killed and butchered. When the mother pigs and the males used to impregnate them become too old, they, too, are sent to slaughter.


What You Can Do

There are many substitutes for food made from pigs. Several brands of vegetarian hot dogs, meatless sausage and "bacon" are available. Yves makes tasty veggie lunch "meats" that are healthier for you than eating fatty, high cholesterol pork. You can live quite well, and more healthfully, on a completely vegetarian diet. Such diets have less risk of cancer and other health problems than those based on animal protein and fat. When you give up eating pigs and other animal products, you can feel good knowing that you are not responsible for the inhumane treatment of animals in factory farms.

PIG FACTS

  • Piglets weigh about 2.5 lbs when born.
  • Each piglet soon decides which is her or his feeding station and always sucks the same nipple.
  • Piglets are "housebroken" right after they are born. They find their way to a far corner of their enclosure and use it as their toilet so as not to soil their sleeping area.
  • Pigs wallow in the mud to keep their skin cool.
  • When pigs sleep, they like to cuddle very close to one another.
  • The pig's snout is a great digging tool. It is long and reinforced with tough cartilage.
  • About 100 million pigs are raised and killed each year in U.S.
  • Pig farms are responsible for some of the worst land and ground water pollution.