Babe's true story

Mother pigs (sows), spend most of their lives in individual "gestation" crates, which are approximately seven-feet-long and two-feet-wide--too small for them to even turn around. Just before giving birth, they are moved to "farrowing" crates, which are not large enough for them to even turn around or build nests for their young.[1]

According to a March 2004 article in the Des Moines Register, "A pregnant sow's biological need to build a nest before having her litter is so great that some sows confined in modern hog buildings will rub their snouts raw on the concrete floor while trying to satisfy the drive."

The deprived environment produces neurotic coping behaviors such as repetitive bar biting, sham chewing (chewing nothing), and obsessively pressing on water bottles.[2,3]

After visiting several pig factory farms, investigator Lauren Ornelas wrote, "what will remain with me forever is the sound of desperate pigs banging their heads against immovable doors and their constant and repeated biting at the prison bars that held them captive. This, I now know, is a sign of mental collapse."

Piglets are taken from their mothers when they are as young as 10 days old and packed into pens until they are separated to be raised for breeding or meat. They too are overcrowded and prone to stress-related behaviors, such as cannibalism and tail-biting.

Rather than give the animals more space and a better environment to prevent these problems, factory farmers chop off the piglets' tails and often use pliers to break off the ends of their teeth.[4] Factory farmers also rip chunks out of the young animals' ears for identification purposes and rip out the males' testicles to prevent them from producing sexual pheremones[5]. All of these excruciating procedures are done without any use of painkillers.[6]

According to a November 10, 2002 article in the New York Times, "Sick pigs, being unproductive 'production units' are clubbed to death on the spot." Other common methods used to kill sick pigs include: "thumping" (slamming animals' heads against the floor until they die), drowning them with a hose, and standing on their necks.[7, 8, 9]

Approximately 100 million pigs are killed in the U.S. each year.[10] Cruelty at slaughterhouses is commonplace. An April 10, 2001 story in the Washington Post reports that, "Hogs...are dunked in tanks of hot water after they are stunned to soften the hides for skinning. As a result, a botched slaughter condemns some hogs to being scalded and drowned. Secret videotape from an Iowa pork plant shows hogs squealing and kicking as they are being lowered into the water."

According to slaughter plant worker, Tommy Vladak, "After they left me, the hogs would go up a hundred-foot ramp to a tank where they're dunked in 140° water...Water any hotter than that would take the meat right off their bones...There's no way these animals can bleed out in the few minutes it takes to get up the ramp. By the time they hit the scalding tank, they're still fully conscious and squealing. Happens all the time." [11]

Pigs "have the cognitive ability to be quite sophisticated. Even more so than dogs and certainly [more so than] three-year-olds," says Dr. Donald Broom, Cambridge University professor and former scientific advisor to the Council of Europe. One study found that they can even learn to play simple video games. Pigs naturally live in groups and express friendships with each other through vocalizing, body language, and with whom they spend their time. Like human children, piglets are particularly fond of play and chase one another, play-fight, tumble down hills, and generally engage in a wide variety of enjoyable activities. Pigs are very active, traveling up to 30 miles a day at a quick pace. Noted ethologist, Dr. Alex Stolba, observed that pigs living in a natural environment also spend much of their day grazing and rooting. Pigs raised on factory farms are denied all of these behaviors.

References

1	Kaufman, M. (2001, June). In pig farming, growing concern. The Washington Post, 18.
2	Zanella, A.J. & Duran, O. (2000, Nov. 16). Pig welfare during loading and transportation: a North American perspective. I Conferencia Virtual Internacional Sobre Qualidade de Carne Suina.
3	Kaufman, M. (2001, June). In pig farming, growing concern. The Washington Post, 18.
4	Luce, W. G. et al. (1995, Mar.). Managing the sow and litter. Oklahoma Cooperative Extension Service.
5	Burcham, N. L. (1997, Nov.). Identify pigs by ear notching. Cooperative Extension Service, New Mexico State University.
6	Humane Society of the United States. Frequently asked questions about factory hog farms.
7	Israelsen, B. (2003, January 30). Circle Four (hog farm) workers quit, decry ‘inhumane’ conditions in Utah hog production factory. Salt Lake Tribune.
8	PETA. Pig Farm Cruelty Revealed. http://www.peta.org/feat/invest.
9	Humane Farming Association. (2004). Petition for enforcement of South Dakota animal cruelty laws at Sun Prairie confinement hog factory—Rosebud Sioux Reservation. http://www.hfa.org/campaigns/rosebudhogs.pdf.
10	USDA. Agricultural Statistics 2003.
11	Eisnitz. G. (1997). Slaughterhouse (p. 71).