Pigs:  Pork and Bacon

Perhaps you’ve heard the surprising fact that pigs are smarter than dogs?  It’s not a myth—it’s true! Pigs are intelligent, curious animals who happen to be very clean, despite the unfair label they get for being filthy because they cool off by covering themselves in mud.   Over 110 million pigs are slaughtered every year in the United States for their flesh—and most are killed on “factory farms” where they are intensively confined in obscene conditions and denied every natural instinct before being killed.

Female pigs are often kept intensely confined and trapped in “gestation crates”– metal cages where they cannot even turn around and are forcible impregnated over and over again until their bodies can no longer go on.  They are treated like unfeeling machines.  The mothers often go insane from these conditions. It’s hard to believe such treatment is legal—and in fact gestation crates are banned in the United Kingdom and Canada and in several states in the US.  We need a nationwide ban as these metal crates are nothing less than torture for these poor exploited female pigs.

The piglets born to these mothers are then cruelly taken away after just a few days or weeks when naturally they would stay with their mothers for several months.  This is another example of sabotage of motherhood by the animal agriculture industry. These babies will then have their tails chopped off, the ends of their teeth removed and their ears mutilated—all without pain relief.   If they are males, they will be castrated — also without pain relief.  It is gut wrenching to watch video of these poor, defenseless, emotional animals, as they scream in terror.  The rest of their miserable lives are spent crammed into pens where they await slaughter once they are fattened up enough.  How can we justify treating these beautiful, sensitive animals in such a way?   Calling someone a “pig” is a common insult, but the truth is that pigs are intelligent, sensitive creatures who don’t deserve to be brutalize and tortured just to be turned into bacon or pork.

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