100 signatures reached
To: The Rt Hon Owen Paterson MP
The Misery behind bacon.
To investigate and stop the cruel and inhumane treatment and appalling conditions in which factory farmed pigs live. These innocent animals do not deserve to be tortured in factory farms. They should be treated with respect and given a humane lifestyle. Pigs are intelligent animals and sometimes go their entire lives stuck in crates with no room to even turn around. Piglets are sometimes piled up on top of one another causing suffocation. The brutal conditions these innocent animals go through on a daily basis is horrific and unnecessary. Considering these animals are providing food for us, the least we can do is respect them and give them a good life. I really hope we can change the standards of factory farms to create better lives for these beautiful animals and give them the chance they deserve.
Why is this important?
Today's factory farms are a living hell for pigs and other animals", says PETA Associate Director Mimi Bekhechi. Pigs, who are as sociable and intelligent as dogs, are abused in ways that would be illegal if dogs or cats were the victims.
Pigs are more intelligent than dogs and used to live wild in Britain. Now they are kept locked in prisons for meat. Instead of being free, with a right to a natural existence, more than 90 per cent of piglets are factory farmed. In investigations of farms all over Britain, Viva! exposed diseased, dead and dying animals.
In almost every fattening unit was glaring neglect and indifference - broken legs, abscesses, ruptured stomachs, animals coughing with pneumonia, others panting from meningitis, cuts and lacerations from the perforated metal on which they are forced to live.
One farm investigated in Yorkshire - which supplied major supermarkets - looked almost derelict, with junk and debris everywhere and only an array of grimy windowless sheds as the give away to what it farmed. An overpowering stench of ammonia and faeces was overwhelming.
There was no light inside but a cacophony of noise - a scrambling and clattering of animals in fear. The camera lights revealed baby pigs in barren metal pens and the noise was their feet on the bare metal floors as they charged to get away. There were so many of then that there was no place to go or hide.
This near darkness, these utterly barren, sterile conditions is their home for over a month - about one-fifth of their lives. One pig had a broken leg, others were stunted and suffering from 'scabby pig' from which they will almost certainly die. Some were lame, others had deformed spines.
Outside in a rusting trailer was a pile of rotting corpses, discoloured and bloated from days of decay were half submerged in putrid rainwater.
In the 'second stage grower' pen, there were around 200 large pigs in an area of about 10m by 12m. Overcrowding is typical of this industry. The pigs squealed and screamed, biting in their desperation to be let out.
The pigs are killed at about five months old for sausages, bacon, ham and pork.
The 'breeding stock' - the pigs kept to produce the piglets which are killed for meat - usually give birth in a small farrowing crate on a concrete or perforated metal floor. A Viva! investigation of a Tesco supplier exposed mother pigs with ulcers and infections in cages inches bigger than their bodies; maggots crawling over dead piglets and starving, dying animals. Sows have strong maternal feelings and would normally spend days building a nest of leaves or straw. In a crate they cannot do this and so lapse into stereotyped behaviour where they repeatedly try to build a nest in their barren cell.
The bars on the crates stop the mother pigs from being able to move - they cannot take a step forward or back or turn around. This causes the pregnant animals to ache all over and many have back and leg problems.
The bars also stop them from reaching their babies when they give birth, although the babies can reach their mother's teats to suckle. The piglets are taken away early at about four weeks old and kept in the fattening units. Five days after her piglets are taken away, the sow is made pregnant again and the whole misery-go-round continues.
