The Pig Industry

Most pigs bred for food begin life in a farrowing crate, a small pen with a central cage designed to allow the piglets to feed on their mother, the sow while preventing her from moving around. The frequency of stillborn or mummified piglets generally increases with each litter as the sow’s bodies become less capable of handling the large litter sizes encouraged by the industry. 10-18% of piglets who are born alive won’t make it to weaning age. They are succumbed to disease, starvation or dehydration, or being accidentally crushed by their trapped mothers. Included in the total death toll are the runts of the litter, who are considered economically unviable and thus killed by the staff. Those who survive the first few days are mutilated without pain relief, their tails and teeth cut to reduce cannibalism and pieces cut from their ears, or tags punched in, as a means of identification. They are taken away from their mothers at 3-5 weeks of age and stored in weaners pens.

As they age, they are moved into grower pens where they are destined to be slaughter 5 months later. Crowded together in their own waste and with tight conditions, cannibalism of other’s tails and the deceased are common.

Some females pigs are kept on to replace the sows in the breeding cycle, carefully selected for their perceived ability to produce large litters. Most pigs utilize artificial insemination rather than natural breeding as it allows them to impregnate up to 30-40 female pigs from a single boar. When confirmed pregnant, the sow is moved into one of two confined housing for the entirety of her 16-week gestation period.

Sow stalls are individual cages in which like farrowing crates, sows are only able to take one or two steps forwards or backward and are unable to turn around. When given the chance, pigs will choose to relieve themselves far away from where they sleep and eat, but with confined spaces, they are therefore unable to do so. And this extreme confinement takes a heavy psychological toll.

The alternative, group housing sees pregnant pigs packed into small concrete pens. A lack of space and stimuli causes the pigs to become aggressive. Those who fall through the effluent system through gaps in the flooring are left to starve or drown in the river of waste.

A week before they are due to give birth, they are moved into farrowing crate cages where they will remain for the next 4-6 weeks. Unable to exercise, the sow’s muscles will weaken to the point where she has difficulty standing up or lying down. To minimize muscle wastage, workers will force her to stand up at least once daily. She will additionally develop pressure sores from the hard surfaces. Prolapses and infections from the physical strain, repeated farrowing, and poor conditions aid in partial paralysis, which can prevent her from reaching her food and water at the front of her cage, or even lead to her death. She’ll watch as her piglets fall ill and die or get mutilated and abused by workers until they are taken away from her.

The term “bred free-range” means that they are born outside in small huts but then spend the rest of their lives in sheds that face the same overcrowding, health, and behavioral issues as at any pig farm.

Capable of living 10-12 years, most pigs are killed at just 5-6 months old, packed onto transportation trucks at the piggery, and driven often long distances to the slaughterhouse without food, water, or protection from the cold. At the slaughterhouse, they’ll wait in small concrete or metal holding pens, typically overnight, still without access to food and with limited to no access to water.

In the morning, they are herded onto the kill floor, often with an electric prodder. The most common method of stunning and killing pigs used in all major big abattoirs and touted as the most “humane” and efficient option is the use of the carbon dioxide gas chamber. This consists of a system of rotating cages that lower fully conscious pigs, two or three at a time, into heavily concentrated gas which burns their eyes, nostrils, sinuses, throat, and lungs while also suffocating them. Lower concentrations of carbon dioxide would cause less pain and stress but would take much longer to render the pigs unconscious. Sows are sent into the chamber gondolas one at a time. Because of their size, the gas is less effective with some emerging slightly conscious in which case they may also be electrically stunned afterward. After rendered unconscious, they are tipped out of the chamber where their throats are cut and bled out.

Electrical stunning is used in a small slaughterhouse and has a much higher chance of failure. Incorrect amperage, positioning of the stunner, the length of time applied, or failing to cut the throat quick enough can lead the pig to be merely paralyzed and unable to move while still capable of feeling pain or even regaining consciousness while bleeding out.

Captive bolt pistols are another option used by smaller slaughterhouses. The penetrative variety fires a rod through the skull of the pig to permanently damage their brain, preventing them from regaining consciousness, while non-penetrative bolt pistols deliver blunt force trauma, much like a hammer. Having witnessed their fellow littermates killed before them or being able to smell the blood on the floor makes the pig reluctant to enter the knock box. The bolt gun is even less effective on larger pigs, like sows for them, a rifle may be used instead, but accuracy with this method is even more difficult.

After they have been bled out, pigs are dropped into tanks of scalding water in order to soften their skin and remove bristles and hair. Those who haven’t been stunned and killed properly finally die by drowning. The waste products - the skin’s bones, hoofs, guts, and fat - are trucked to the rendering plant to be turned into lard for use in food, soaps, biofuel, or gelatin, among other products.

Though pigs may be deemed ugly or overall being undesirable, pigs are highly intelligent creatures with capabilities that measure higher than those who we hold closest to us and say we value, such as dogs. But more importantly, the qualities we give them or estimates of intelligence level do not negate the fact that on the most basic level, these animals suffer, as all do.

AustralianPigFarming, director. Dominion (2018) - Full Documentary [Official]. YouTube, YouTube, 9 Oct. 2018, www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQRAfJyEsko&t=1403s.

images credited to @dominionmovement and @weanimals