One confession from a slaughterhouse worker, worth a thousand words: "One time, I took my knife--it's sharp enough--and I sliced off the end of a hog's nose, just like a piece of lunch meat. The hog went crazy for a few seconds. Then it just sat there looking kind of stupid. So I took a handful of salt brine and ground it into his nose. Now that hog really went nuts, pushing its nose all over the place. I still had a bunch of salt left on my hand and I stuck the salt right up the hog's ass. The poor hog didn't know whether to shit or go blind".

You are really naive if you believe that this is rare.
Something like this is happening right now! And now! And now!
And every minute of every hour of every of every day of another horrible year. It never stops.
How can you tell them to wait until humans will change?!
Do you really believe that humans are worth all the suffer of all the world’s creatures?

The pig industry consists of two different herds, each with its own function. The breeding sows function is to produce as many piglets as possible.
The role of the piglets is to produce meat. They are reared to the age of 4-6 months then they are slaughtered.

Between 18 to 20 piglets per sow per year is common in the industry.
By selective breeding, pig breeders attempt to further increase the number of piglets per sow. The more baby pigs are born, the greater the fight between them over their mother’s teats. What is the industry solution? Genetic manipulation of course. They have created a sow with two more teats.
There is no limit to the industry’s effort to squeeze more money at the expense of the poor animals.

Sows are kept in sow stalls or tether stalls. Sow stalls are metal-barred stalls which are so narrow that the sow cannot even turn around, she can only take a step forwards or backwards. Sows are confined in these stalls throughout their 16½ weeks of pregnancy, for pregnancy after pregnancy. This means that the sows are imprisoned this way most of their lives.

A sow is fed at one end of the crate, and her feces collects at the other.
Some crates are so narrow that simply standing up and lying down require immense effort. On some factory farms, the sow is tied to the floor by a short chain or a strap around her neck.
All the sows are deprived of all exercise and of any opportunity to fulfill their behavioral needs.

They live in a constant state of pain.

About a week before the sow gives birth, she is moved to another type of crate – a farrowing crate. Sows are devoted mothers and would normally spend days building a nest of leaves or straw. In the concrete or metal floor of the farrowing crate they cannot do this and so lapse into a stereotyped behavior - they repeatedly try to build a nest in their barren cell.

The bars on the crates totally restrict the mother’s ability to move.
This causes the pregnant sows' whole body to ache and many have back and leg problems. The bars prevent them from reaching their babies, though the babies can reach their mothers teats to suck. Short chains or rubber straps are used to immobilize the mother to give the piglets easy access to her. Five days after her piglets are taken away, the sow is being raped again and the whole misery-cycle starts all over again.

The "justification" for the use of the farrowing crate is that the sow would otherwise crush her young. Under natural conditions, she would virtually never accidentally kill her offspring, it won't happen. Everything in the sow's life (and every other "farm animal" life) is so cynical and absurd.
The "problem" of crushing the piglets was created by a lack of space and horrible housing conditions. The industry's solution is to get them worse.

Normally, piglets would stay with their mother for about 15 weeks. However, on factory farms, they are taken away at 2 to 3 weeks, weighing only about 15 pounds. They are crowded into small filthy "nursery" pens surrounded by metal bars and concrete.

Animals produced for meat are 'crop'. It starts with the sows which are treated as reproduction machines, production units of baby pigs. The worth of a sow is measured by the number of piglets she successfully weans per year.

Lameness, sores and other leg, back and hip problems are all very common in the pig industry. Urinary tract infections are also very common. This high incidence of urinary tract infections is associated with the low levels of activity imposed on sows, kept in stalls or tethers. Another reason is that they have to lie, or sit, in their feces.

They are smothered in feces and flies. They can hardly move. They'd like to walk away, build a 'nest' somewhere private, and keep clean, but they can't. They can barely stand up or lie down.

They are deprived: fresh air, quietness, natural diet and exercise, freedom to forage, walk, roam, explore, dig and interact, wallow in mud and develop natural social relationships. This confinement in semi-darkness would torture any sentient creature.

The lack of environmental stimulation in the stall and the sows' inability to perform normal behaviors leads to psychological disorders including: chronic stress, aggression, depression and frustration.
The result is that the sows develop abnormal and neurotic coping behaviors, like waving their heads from side to side, biting bars over and over again, or biting each other's tails. Some sows become apathetic and unresponsive. They are in a severe state of depression.

Bored and frustrated, they turn to the only other ‘thing’ in their world, they begin to chew and bite the other pigs’ tails. Tail-biting can lead to infections and abscesses. To prevent tail-biting, most farmers cut the piglets’ tails with pliers or a hot docking iron.

Many piglets’ pointed side-teeth are clipped down to the gum with pliers, in the first few days of life. This is done to prevent them from injuring either the sow's udder or the faces of their litter mates, leaving them shocked and bleeding. Once again, the industry ignores the real problem- namely, the piglets are being forced to compete for teats in an unyielding metal and concrete environment.

The piglets are also snipped in their ears for identification.

Most male piglets are castrated. Castration is done because consumers are thought to find the meat of intact males objectionable. Although many drugs are given to pigs throughout their lives, pain relievers are not among them, not in any of these procedures.
They are castrated without anesthesia.

Do you get it?! Humans Cut off pigs’ testicles for a better taste and you even have doubts?! What more do you need?! Maybe a slaughterhouse worker memory will convince you:
"One time, there was a live hog in the pit. It hadn't done anything wrong, wasn't even running around. It was just alive. I took a three foot chunk of pipe and I literally beat that hog to death. I'll bet there couldn't have been a two inch diameter piece of solid bone in his head. Basically, if you want to put it in laymen's terms, I crushed his skull."

The air in hog factories is laden with dust and noxious gases which are produced by the animals' urine and feces. Studies of workers in swine confinement buildings have found that 60% have breathing problems, despite the fact that the workers spend only a few hours a day inside the confinement buildings. You can’t visualize these places, you have to see them. The smell of excrement is overwhelming. The pigs who have an acute sense of smell can never escape it. Ammonia fumes damage their lungs and, unsurprisingly, many die of respiratory diseases.

Selective breeding is being used to develop pigs with faster growth rates and quicker, heavier muscle development. Pigs’ legs are simply unable to keep pace with the growth rate of the rest of their body. As a result pigs suffer from painful joint and leg problems.

Pigs are growing too fast not only for their legs, but also for their heart and lungs.
As a result of selective breeding, the pigs’ muscles have grown out of proportion to their blood-vessels and heart. They can be physiologically affected by not being able to get enough oxygen into their muscles, so even a young pig can have a heart attack and die.

After 4-6 months of hell, when they reach the industrey's desraiable weight, the pigs are violently loaded on the transport trucks of to the slaughterhouse. The pigs who are denied normal movements for most of their lives, are suddenly expected to get as fast as possible from the transport trucks into the slaughterhouse. And as always time is money so all the “necessary” means are being used to load and unload the pigs on and from the truck, as fast as possible.

The workers use electric goads and metal rods to rush the pigs on and off the transporters. Roaring at them to move without a falter.
They don't. They can't.
Instead, they pile up on one another, shrieking in fear and pain.
They are confused, in a strange hostile environment, trying to make sense of what is happening to them. But it is useless. Only humans can understand it.

Pigs cannot sweat. If the weather in the truck is too hot, the pigs' temperatures soar. They pile up over one another to get to the air vents. In cold weather, they huddle together for warmth. Consequently some die from suffocation.

When pigs (and every other animal) refuse to "co-operate" with their own torture and death, they are bludgeoned, kicked and brutally assaulted until they are pinned down. This happens even when pigs are so terrified and traumatized that they silently dream-walk. The pigs are so terrified that they may urinate from fear.

Once inside the slaughterhouse, the first thing that probably strikes the pigs is the noise. In some locations it is like a roaring mechanical tide, elsewhere the explosive sound of metallic slamming and clanking, chains and hooks coupling and uncoupling, the hiss of power hoses, the bang of the "captive bolt" as it penetrates the skulls of cattle mingling with the shrieks of terror from doomed animals.

Prior to being hung upside down by their back legs and bled to death at the slaughterhouse, pigs are supposed to be 'stunned' and rendered unconscious. However, 'stunning' is terribly imprecise, and this results in conscious animals hanging upside down, kicking and struggling, while a slaughterhouse worker tries to 'stick' them in the neck with a knife. If the worker misses, the pig will be carried to the next station on the slaughterhouse assembly line, the scalding tank, where he will be Boiled Alive!

Here are some examples of everyday reality in slaughterhouses:

"They died as a result of the hostile, stressful, disease-promoting conditions inside these massive factories. Or they died because, in a business where product uniformity is more important than anything else, they didn't make weight. Or they died because after permanent immobilization inside tiny crates for years, they could no longer stand. Unable to reach their food troughs, they starved to death. And many died violently. Thousands of piglets that were sick or didn't grow fast enough were beaten to death".

"Pregnant sows were beaten with gate rods, wrenches, and hammers; others had their throats cut while they were still alive, some had caesarians performed on them while they were still alive and fully conscious. And thousands, unable to walk, were dragged by their ears and feet and deposited in piles, where they were simply left to die slowly of starvation or dehydration."

The following is a description by factory farm workers of the standard hog factory practice of "thumping" in which workers pick up pigs by their hind legs, whirl them over their shoulders, and bash them headfirst into the concrete floor.

"We've thumped as many as 120 pigs in one day. We just swing them, thump them, then toss them aside. Then, after you've thumped ten, twelve, fourteen of them, you take them to the chute room and stack them up for the dead truck. And if you go in the chute room and some are still alive, then you have to do this whole procedure all over again. There've been times I've walked in that room and pigs would be running around with an eyeball hanging down the side of their face, just bleeding like crazy, or their jaw would be broken. I've seen them with broken backs, where they've been knocked unconscious for a few minutes, but then they're trying to get up again. "Some of those guys thump them, and then they just stand on top of their throats. Whether it's to keep them from moving or to suffocate them, they stand on top of their throats and wait till they die. They break their jaws and everything while they're doing it."

"You can't really swing the bigger pigs. One time I walked in and the guys were using two by fours and hammers and gate rods and everything else to kill them pigs".

When the pregnant sows are ready to give birth, they are moved from gestation crates into farrowing crates. "They beat the shit out of the sows to get them inside the crates because they don't want to go," said a female worker. "One guy smashed a sow's nose in so bad that she ended up dying of starvation." "We had one too with his nose smashed in," said another. "A 600 pound boar. Smashed him in there. He finally died."

"On the farm where I work," said a worker, "they drag live pigs who can't stand up any more out of the crate. They put a metal snare around her ear or front foot and they drag her the full length of the building. And these animals are just screaming in pain. They're dragging them across the concrete. It's ripping their skin. These metal snares are tearing up their ears..."
"When sows can't stand up anymore and we have to kill 'em to perform C-sections, we wait until within a week of farrowing and we kill her and cut her open, then we drag her outside to the Dumpster. We use a stun gun or we get a hammer and start beating the head. Until they die."

"I saw sows being beaten with gate rods and violated with canes, struck in the head with wrenches, sows being kicked, stomped on, and dragged down alleyways, having their throats slowly cut with a tiny scalpel while they were still fully conscious, sows being killed by having cinderblocks dropped on their heads, and sows being skinned alive and having their legs removed with a hack-saw while they were still fully conscious and moaning."

"In the winter, some hogs come in all froze to the sides of the trucks. They tie a chain around them and jerk them off the walls of the truck, leave a chunk of hide and flesh behind. They might have a little bit of life left in them, but workers throw them on piles of dead ones. They'll die sooner or later because there's nothing left to them."

"These hogs get up to the scalding tank, hit the water, and just start screaming and kicking. I'm not sure whether the hogs burn to death before drowning. The water is 140 degrees, not that hot. I don't believe the hogs go into shock, because it takes them a couple of minutes to stop thrashing. I think they die slowly from drowning".

"Frustrated stunners, shacklers, and stickers were beating pigs with pipes, poking their eyes out, chasing them into the scalding tank alive, and crushing their skulls. They stuck electric prods up animals' butts and in their eyes and held them there. They dragged disabled animals with meat hooks in their mouths and anuses until their intestines ripped out. When there was down time, workers half-stunned pigs with electricity to watch them flip up in the air. They allowed disabled animals to freeze to concrete floors, and then stay there for days; they chain-sawed hogs alive into pieces for rendering."

"One day when I went out to the suspect pen, two employees were using metal pipes to club some hogs to death. There had to be twenty little hogs out there that they were going to give to the rendering company. And these two guys were out there beating them to death with clubs and having a good old time."

"I've seen them put twenty to twenty-five holes in a hog's head trying to knock her and she was still on her feet. Her head looked like Swiss cheese. Tough gal. Sometimes they'll use a twenty-two and shoot the hog through its eye. Or you might have to hit both eyes on the same hog."

"If you get a hog in the chute that refuses to move, you take a meat hook and clip it into his anus. You try to do this by clipping the hipbone. Then you drag him backwards. You are dragging these hogs alive, and a lot of times the meat hook rips out of the bunghole. I've seen hams--thighs--completely ripped open. I've also seen intestines come out. If the hog collapses near the front of the chute, you shove a meat hook into his cheek and drag him forward."

"The preferred method of handling a cripple is to beat him to death with a lead pipe before he gets into the chute. It's called 'piping'. All the drivers use pipes to kill hogs that can't go through the chutes. Or if a hog refuses to go into the chutes and is stopping production, you beat him to death."

"Hogs are stubborn. Beating them in the head seems to work about the best. Piece of rebar about an inch across, you force a hog down the alley; have another guy standing there with a piece of rebar in his hand. It's just like playing baseball. Just like somebody pitching something at you."