Ish, mother pigs are very bright and sensitive, and good mothers. All mammals love to cuddle and lick and nuzzle and generally love their young. Mother pigs in nature do not roll over on their babies and crush them. The reason the mother pigs are chained down to prevent this is because they are forced to live in tiny crates. You write like the factory farmers are doing the pigs some kind of favor! What a pile of hog poop!
I will try to remember to deal with the factory farm pollution issue in another post. I have to go do something now.
Read this about pigs, and try to feel like a mother pig. Would you like to be a factory farm mother pig, all chained up?
Pigs normally live in groups where they formcomplex social bonds. Pigs cooperate with and defendone another — adults in the entire social group will pro-tect a piglet, leaving their own litters to defend theendangered youngster. If one pig begins an activity, oth-ers will invariably join in. Pigs are loyal by nature, andoften form close friendships with one another.Physical contact is very important to pigs, andthey will lie together when resting. Pigs enjoy close con-tact with humans as well. They like being scratchedbehind the ears and shoulders, grunting contentedly,and will happily roll over for belly rubs.Pigs are also very vocal. They use over 20 identi-fied vocalizations to constantly communicate with oneanother. Males and females have a "song" they usewhen courting, and pigs also enjoy music. Newbornpiglets learn to come to their mother's voice, and themother pig "sings" to her young as they nurse. When ready to give birth, the sow searches,sometimes walking for miles, to find a suitable nest site.She then hollows out the nest and lines it with grass,straw, or other materials. When her babies are five to 10days old, she encourages them tosocialize with the other pigs. Evenafter weaning, young pigs continueto live with their mothers in a closefamily group. Two or more sows andtheir babies will join together in anextended family, with close friend-ships developing between sows.Young piglets play with great enthu-siasm, play-fighting and lifting, mov-ing, or throwing objects into the air.Often one will suddenly dart awaywith the others in hot pursuit. Apiglet playing alone will whirlaround and jump up and down. Pigs are very clean animalsand discriminating eaters. Theycarefully keep their sleeping areaclean and will designate a spot asfar from this area as possible for waste. Unable tosweat, pigs bathe in mud to cool themselves and to pro-tect their skin from sun and insects. They prefer waterto mud, however, and are good swimmers. Pigs are intelligent, and like puppies, piglets willlearn their names and come when called. They exhibitgreat physical stamina — they can run at speeds around11 miles an hour and can trot for relatively long dis-tances. Pigs are active andinquisitive animals who spendmuch of their time rooting, orexploring the soil with theirnoses. When they find some-thing interesting, they will sniff,nibble and manipulate theobject with their powerful, butsensitive, snout.Pigs are loyal companionsand have saved people fromharm. Upon seeing a drowning11-year-old boy, a pig namedPriscilla swam out and rescuedhim. Priscilla remembered thestressful incident and wouldbecome upset whenever shesaw children near water.PigsLivingFree8 www.FarmSanctuary.orgIlike pigs. Dogs look up to us.Cats look down on us. Pigs treatus as equals.- Sir Winston Churchill
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With corporate hog factories replacing tradition-al farms across the United States, pigs are being treatedmore as inanimate tools of production than as living,feeling animals. Among the most cruelly treated arebreeding sows who live a continuous cycle of impregna-tion, birth and re-impregnation, with each sow produc-ing more than 20 piglets per year.Most sows in the U.S. are confined in smallmetal crates that are just two feet wide, and this iswhere they spend most of their lives. The sows barelyhave room to stand up and lie down, and many sufferfrom sores on their bodies from constantly rubbingagainst the crates. Denied straw bedding, the pigs areforced to stand on uncomfortable slatted or gratedfloors that are not designed for animal comfort or well-being, but to allow urine and feces to fall through.Numerous research studies have identified physi-cal and psychological maladies experienced by sows inconfinement. The unnatural flooring and lack of exer-cise cause obesity and crippling leg disorders, while thedeprived environment results in neurotic coping behav-iors such as bar biting, head waving and sham chewing.Pigs have a four-month pregnancy, during whichthey are confined in narrow metal "gestation crates."Shortly before giving birth, they are moved to similarlyrestrictive "farrowing crates" where they give birth andnurse their young. When the piglets are taken away atabout three weeks old, the sows are immediately re-impregnated and returned to gestation crates. Hog fac-tories strive to keep their sows "100 percent active." Asexplained in Successful Farming: "Any sow that is notgestating, lactating or within seven days post weaningis non-active." When sows are no longer deemed productivebreeders, they are sent to slaughter. Their battered,worn-out bodies are typically ground up for low-grademeat products, like pepperoni and sausage, where thebruises and blemishes can go unnoticed. In somecases, the sows are so beaten up that they cannot walk.PigsinGestationCrateswww.FarmSanctuary.org9The breeding sow should bethought of, and treated as, a valuablepiece of machinery whos function isto pump out baby pigs like a sausagemachine.- L.J. Taylor, export development manager for Wall’s Meat Company, Ltd., National Hog FarmerSow in a farrowing crate."At one location, female breeding pigswere forced to live in metal gestationcrates just two feet wide. Standing onhard, slatted floors, the sows were con-fined so intensely they could not walk oreven turn around. Sores were visible onthe pigs' bodies and faces from scrapingagainst the bars of their crates. As Iwalked through the warehouse-llike build-ing, pigs began screaming. A desperate,pleading chorus rose, and the bars of themetal crates rattled and clanked againsteach other and against the animals' bod-ies. I felt like I was in a madhouse — onefrom which the pigs had no escape.”A Farm Sanctuary investigator reports:
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The industrialization of livestock farming has ledto the development of intensive confinement housingsystems for farm animals. Breeding sows in the U.S. aretypically kept in gestation crates for most of their lives,often three to five years. Scientific evidence shows thatthese animals experience both physical and psychologi-cal disorders.Physical DisordersJoint Damage and Impaired mobility Studies have shown that the degree of jointdamage in pigs was directly related to the duration ofconfinement. Damage is also greater in pigs confinedindividually compared to group-housed pigs. This differ-ence is associated with the difference in degree ofactivity and exercise in the two populations, since pigshoused in groups are generally more active than cratedpigs. Confined pigs have lower total bone mass andonly two-thirds the strength of pigs reared in large pens,and they also have significantly greater locomotionproblems than pigs raised in pens.The hard flooring in gestation crates is anothercondition that was found to contribute to leg weaknessin pigs, and may be a contributing factor affecting thecrated sows' difficulty to stand up and lie down. Sowsare more likely to slip when attempting to lie down onthe bare concrete or metal floors of a gestation crate ascompared to lying down on straw.According to the European Commission'sScientific Veterinary Committee and other scientists,the lack of exercise in crates leads to a reduction inmuscle mass that affects the sows' ability to move.Crated sows have smaller locomotor muscles in propor-tion to total body weight than do group-housed sows.When exercised pigs slip, they are usually able to trans-fer weight to other legs and resist falling, whereas unex-ercised animals usually slip further and fall down.Urinary Tract InfectionsStudies show that confined sows have increasedlevels of urinary tract infections, due to the accumula-tion of bacteria from less frequent urination than uncon-fined animals (probably because confined sows are lessactive and drink less than unconfined sows). Further, itis thought that confined sows are more susceptible toinfections of the urinary tract because they often haveno other choice but to lie or sit in their feces.Psychological ProblemsStudies of pigs in a natural environment showthe importance of a complex environment and interac-tions with other animals. Much of their time is spentrooting, or exploring the soil with their noses. Pigs aresocial animals who normally live in groups, cooperative-ly build communal nests, and form complex socialbonds.When confined to crates, pigs are deprived ofnearly all possibilities of expressing themselves. Pigsare easily bored, and the lack of environmental stimula-tion in the barren crates along with the sows' inabilityto perform normal behaviors leads to psychological dis-orders including chronic stress, depression and frustra-tion, aggression, and abnormal and neurotic copingbehaviors called stereotypies.Pig: Consequencesof Confinement10 www.FarmSanctuary.orgScientific Evidence FindsWelfare Problems withGestation Crates
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Chronic StressNeurophysiological indicators of chronic stresshave been found in sows housed in crates. They haveelevated levels of the hormone cortisol compared tosows who are group-housed, while pigs housed in larg-er enclosures that allow them to turn around havereduced cortisol levels than those more severely confined.Depression and FrustrationSows housed in crates with no hope of escapemay develop an emotional state similar to depression.In an observational study of sows housed in differentsystems (but under the same diet and stockmanship),crated sows found the conditions "more difficult" thanthose housed in groups. Crated sows encountered frus-tration likely caused by their inability to move andexpress other behaviors. This intense frustration oftenresults in abnormal and neurotic coping behaviors.AggressionGestation crates prevent socialization with otheranimals, which can affect pigs' level of motivation tointeract socially. Pigs in crates show higher levels ofbehavioral responses to other pigs than pigs housed ingroups, which is possibly due to the high levels of frus-tration encountered by crated pigs. Another negativeconsequence of stress specifically applicable to cratedsows is the high levels of hostile behavior (e.g., bitingthrough bars) and aggression.Abnormal and Neurotic Behaviors(including Stereotypies)Striking evidence of welfare problems in cratedsows is the fact that animals in this housing systemperform more stereotypic or abnormal behavior thanthose in other systems. Stereotypic behavior has beenviewed as abnormal because it does not occur in therange of situations that could normally be encounteredin nature. According to Stolba et al., "the available evi-dence on stereotypies in higher mammals showsbeyond doubt, that these patterns are sure signs ofseverely disturbed welfare." Stereotypies can also beviewed as a "normal" response to an abnormal environ-ment that lacks adequate space and stimulation.Causal explanations for this type of stereotypicor abnormal behavior have included frustration andboredom resulting from lack of environmental stimula-tion. Stereotypies in sows include vacuum or shamchewing (chewing nothing), head waving, chewing ofbars, licking, and chewing or nosing of objectwww.FarmSanctuary.org11For the complete report of the scientificevidence, including bibliography, from whichConsequences of Confinement was derived,visit www.freefarmanimals.org, or you can alsoobtain a copy from Farm Sanctuary.
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