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PORK & BACON
How producing Pork & Bacon impacts animals
A short and pain-filled life of torment
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Pigs used to produce pork and bacon products in Australia suffer in many ways. Excluded from animal cruelty legislation, pigs can and do undergo many painful procedures without pain relief. The overwhelming majority of pigs raised for meat are kept in intensive confinement before being sent to slaughter, where they will most likely face the agonising experience of the C02 gas chambers. Like most animals used for food production, the lives of pigs are cut well short of their natural lifespan, being killed at just six months of age or 2-3 years for sows used for breeding.
Fast Facts
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A life of Confinement
TRAPPED AND TORMENTED
Over 90% of the five million pigs slaughtered annually in Australia have lived a life of almost total confinement.
Most people will have heard of Sow stalls, used extensively in Australian pig farming for confining pregnant sows before they give birth. For those unfamiliar, sow stalls are metal cages where female pigs are confined for part or all of their pregnancy. The stalls are barely large enough for a full-grown female pig to step forward or backward.
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You may have heard that sow stalls are banned in Australia, but the reality might differ from what you think.
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Rather than a ban, the Australian Pork industry only committed to a voluntary phase-out of sow stalls by 2017. It was never a complete removal of sow stalls, rather a reduction in the time pigs could be forced to live in them. As a voluntary measure, it is not policed, and it is still legal to confine pregnant sows in these stalls for six weeks and then move them to a farrowing crate for six weeks. A farrowing crate only differs from a sow stall as it has space for her piglets to move around her. Given the frequency of reimpregnation, sows could spend up to half of the year confined to a small stall.
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The alternative to Sow stalls used in intensive pig farming is "group housing" This housing system allows sows to move in around in a small area with other females, still within concrete-floored, confined regions of large sheds. Group housing leads to fighting between sows, who in nature would find their own space, make a nest and prepare for their piglet's arrival.
The general public would not be aware that group housing is similar to sow stalls nor that boars used for breeding are kept in similar stalls, confined for their entire lives.
Cruel practices
A TALE OF LEGALISED CRUELTY
Farmed animals are excluded from the legislation that protects the dogs and cats we live with from cruelty. This means that practices that would be illegal if performed on dogs and cats can all be performed without pain relief, legally on pigs.
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Piglets across all housing systems have their tails cut off, typically with no pain relief. This procedure aims to reduce tail biting as the pigs grow to slaughter weight. Tail biting occurs as pigs are highly intelligent, curious beings, and being housed in large barren sheds with hundreds of other pigs is stressful and stifles almost all of their natural behaviours, such as rooting in the earth, wallowing and finding their social groups.
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Piglets often have notches cut from their ears to identify which litter they came from, have their teeth clipped, and may also be castrated with no anaesthetic.
Terrifying deaths
SUFFERING TO DEATH IN GAS CHAMBERS
Today, most slaughterhouses in Australia place pigs in C02 gas chambers to render them unconscious before they are slaughtered.
Whilst the industry has claimed that pigs 'simply fall asleep' when exposed to the gas, ongoing investigations have revealed that the truth is much different.
As they are lowered into the dense C02 gas, Pigs desperately try to escape the chamber, screaming in terror. Pigs stunned using this method likely experience burning eyes, skin and lungs and the desperate panic of being unable to breathe.
Free range
NOT WHAT YOU PICTURED?
Consumers looking to avoid the confinement of sows in stalls or farrowing crates might opt for free-range products. However, no legislation covering free-range labelling and issues such as tail cutting, ear notching, high stocking densities and grower pigs being kept indoors still exist, as there are no independent checks in place.
Labels such as "bred free-range" means that sows delivering their piglets have access to the outdoors; however, once the piglets are weaned, they are moved to indoor sheds. The issues that pertain to free-range also apply to the "bred free-range" label.
Sows on RSPCA-approved farms might have outdoor access; however, once weaned, their piglets are kept in sheds that, while open to the air at the sides, do not allow the pigs outdoors. Investigations have revealed grower pigs living knee-deep in filthy conditions on RSPCA-approved farms and pigs with severe and untreated injuries.
Given the number of slaughterhouses that use C02 chambers to stun pigs, it is very likely that the majority of pigs from free-range farms end up suffering the same agonising deaths as those from intensive farms.
Smarter than dogs
SENTIENT. EMOTIONAL. SMART.
Pigs are highly intelligent, sentient beings. As clever as a four-year-old human, more intelligent than dogs and, in some tests, primates.
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Pigs have rich emotional lives. They form friendships with other individuals of their choosing, select a mate, make intricate nests and even sing to their piglets.
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Remarkably clean animals, pigs will use an area well away from their sleeping and eating areas if they are not confined. Pigs use mud to stay cool in summer, as they cannot sweat to regulate their body temperature.
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Pigs have the same capacity to suffer as the dogs and cats we consider part of our family.
Compassion-washing
LABELS THAT PERPETUATE PAIN
The vast majority of people believe that the unnecessary suffering of animals should be avoided. However, most people are almost entirely unaware of how the animals they eat are raised and slaughtered.
To feel better about continuing to eat animals, we tell ourselves that animals are raised with care, enjoy an excellent quality of life, are allowed to live to adulthood, and slip away peacefully at the end. These imaginings might make us sleep easier, but it is far from the brutal reality animals face.
Many of the labels that exist on animal products help to prop up the illusions we have, but in reality, the majority of these labels amount to little more than compassion-washing, and the animals behind the labels suffer immensely.
Peace for Pigs
Create a kinder world
According to a NSW Pork Industry Overview in 2015, Australian's consume 25kg of pork and bacon each year, half of which is imported.
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Aside from the cruelty, all animal products are inherently inefficient to produce. Because animals are living beings who grow, move and spend energy just living, they use up more calories than we end up being able to extract from their products (meat, milk or eggs). The ratio of how much feed goes in vs how much we get out is known as the 'feed conversion ratio'. The feed conversion ratio for pork in Australia is on average, 3.6. That means it requires 3.6 kilograms of feed for every kilogram of pork produced.
The grain that must be grown to feed pigs uses vast amounts of land and water, in fact, it takes 5,990 litres to produce 1 kilogram of pork. The global water footprint of pork in the period 1996-2005 was 19% of the total water footprint of animal production in the world (all farm animals). Waste from the vast numbers of pigs housed on commercial pig farms can contribute to water pollution.
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Each year, 5.4 million pigs are killed in Australia. Most die in terror and agony in CO2 gas chambers. Make peace for pigs, choose plant based alternatives to ham, bacon and pork, and you will no longer be contributing to the suffering of pigs.
From a plant based BLT to a cheese, vegan-ham and tomato toastie, there are lots of ways to replace pig products that are better for the animals, the planet, and your health.
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Make Peace for Pigs - Spare millions of pigs a short and brutal life, and terrifying, painful death, by swapping pig products for plant based alternatives.
Kinder Options
