Eating Animals IV: Pigs

My perception of pigs growing up was that they are fat, lazy, disgusting animals. It turns out this was just a result of the way I've seen them farmed.

Pigs are like Babe, or Wilbur. They like to run about, they're sociable, curious, and as intelligent as dogs.

If you've ever seen a pig in a pig pen, this is not the impression you get. They lie there, hardly able to move, if they're a sow then their young are running about near their teats and you wonder how they don't get squashed.

The reality is, that pigs are confined to pig pens so that they cannot move. Often, they can't even turn around. The consumer does not like to eat fit pig, and, like chickens, the battery method only seems to positively affect productivity. Their bone density decreases, they live in their own filth (no, pigs do not like this) and thus pick up all sorts of bugs and diseases. They're permanently in pain, partly because of selective breeding, and partly because they're unable to move. They get covered in sores (think bed sores from long term hospital patients).

The litter, in a proper factory farm, are kept in battery cages, stacked atop each other. They defecate on each other. The runts of the litters (~10%) are killed. By far the most common way that this is done is that they're picked up by their hind legs and slammed against the concrete.

Because of the density of the farming, a large scale pig pen will be surrounded by a dozen poo-lakes. These are so deep and disgusting that people have died by losing consciousness when near them and falling in. Nearby villages often end up with contaminated water, and the poo often gets sprayed into the atmosphere. People's health and even lives are subsidising the cost for our cheap bacon. In fact, in a proper factory farm, in the pens, if the power goes out so that the ventilation is turned off, you'll die in a matter of minutes. Asthma rates among kids of pig farmers is as high as 50%.

Not allowing pigs to run about, sleep in groups, do the things they naturally want to do. Forcing them to stay in holding cells where they develop sores and their bodies waste away (well, all except their meat). Selectively breeding them so that they're in constant pain, and also, by the way, extremely susceptible to stress - apparently high stress response = good meat, so a 'modern' pig can have a heart attack just from being moved between pens, or from a truck arriving outside the pen. All of this is so so wrong.

The sad fact is that my exposure to pig farming as a kid, confirmed much of this in Australia too.

So we have well and truly crossed off all unhappy pig meat. If our family eats delicious bacon, it's from a farmer where we are confident of the treatment of the animal, and therefore, only for special occasions because of the prohibitive, yet reasonable, price.