PIGS IN THE WILDDespite many thousands of years of domestication and selective breeding, farmed pigs retain most of the basic behavioural characteristics of their ancestor, the wild boar.

Pigs are highly intelligent and curious. They are omnivorous and highly motivated to forage, and explore their environment, searching widely for a diverse range of foods. A free-ranging pig may spend up to 75 per cent of her day foraging.

Pigs like to live together in social groups, but prefer a stable social hierarchy, which they establish by ghting or avoidance. The basic social unit is a group of two to six sows and their female offspring.

Close to the time they are due to give birth, sows gather straw and other soft bedding materials

to build a private nest away from their group..In the wild, piglets are integrated into the social group gradually with little aggression occurring, and are fully weaned after 13 to 17 weeks.

INTENSIVE PIG FARMINGMost pigs farmed in New Zealand are conned indoors at high densities, with the goal of producing large volumes of cheap meat. The pigs, however, pay the price as they attempt to cope with the articial conditions, unnatural social groupings and stressful farming practices.Intensively farmed pigs in New Zealand live in barren environments that do not allow them to fully satisfy their behavioural needs, causing stress that can lead to physical and mental illnesses.

QUICK FACTS

Each New Zealander eats, on average, 20 kilograms of pork each year. About 42 per cent of that is imported.

In 2007 approximately 370,000 pigs were being kept on New Zealand farms at any given time, including nearly 47,000 breeding sows.

In 2007 around 760,000 pigs were killed in New Zealand slaughterhouses.

About 700,000 kilograms of pork are imported to New Zealand every week, mainly from Canada, the USA, Australia and Finland.

About 5000 people are employed in the pig industry in New Zealand.

The pig meat industry contributes approximately $180 million to the economy each year.

There are approximately 360 pig farms in New Zealand. 56 per cent of the countrys pigs are produced in herds of more than 1000 pigs.

SAFE INFORMATION SHEET

FACTORY FARMING: PORK PRODUCTION

Most of the bacon, ham and pork eaten by New Zealanders comes from pigs kept in cruel, intensive production systems, also known as factory farms. Scientic research shows that these systems do not allow pigs to fully satisfy their behavioural needs, leading to stress and physical and mental illnesses.

Factory pig farming is banned, or is being phased out, in a number of countries because of the suffering it causes. Yet, New Zealands pig welfare legislation allows such cruelty. However this legislation is being reviewed in 2010, providing an opportunity for these cruel systems to nally be phased out in New Zealand.

HOUSINGIntensive pig farms conne pigs to large, windowless, atmospherically controlled sheds for their entire lives. The air inside these sheds may be dry and dusty with a strong smell of ammonia.

Such high density connement and unnatural social groupings can result in aggression and ghting between pigs, which can lead to injuries and aborted pregnancies. Farmers therefore conne pregnant and lactating sows to individual crates, called sow stalls and farrowing crates respectively. These reduce physical injuries due to ghting, maximise production and simplify management, but prevent the animals from satisfying their physical and behavioural needs. Sows may spend much of their lives closely conned indoors in one or other of these sow crates.

SOW STALLSAbout 29 per cent of New Zealand pig farmers conne their breeding sows (who produce the piglets destined to become meat) in individual sow stalls for part or all of their pregnancies (4-16 weeks). These farmers are mostly large-scale producers who farm 45 per cent of all sows (about 21,000 in total).

Sow stalls are barren, metal-barred crates, barely larger than the sow herself. Most crates are only 60 centimetres wide and two metres long, which means the animals are unable to turn around, and can only take a few steps backwards and forwards. The oors of the stalls are concrete, with a slatted area at the back for droppings and urine to fall through, and a water source and feeding trough at the front.

WWW.SAFE.ORG.NZ

The animals are given controlled amounts of concentrated food designed to satisfy the pigs minimum nutritional requirements. This scientically formulated feed, however, minimises the accumulation of excess fat due to lack of exercise.

Pregnant sows may be conned to sow stalls for part or all of their 16-week pregnancy. Shortly before they are due to give birth they are transferred to a farrowing crate.

FARROWING CRATESFarrowing crates are similar to sow stalls in structure and size, but with the addition of a separate heated area for the piglets.

It is claimed that farrowing crates are used primarily to protect piglets from being crushed by their mother. There is evidence however, that intensive pig farming has itself increased the risk of piglets being crushed. For example, modern sows are larger and longer than their wild

ancestors, and some research indicates this has resulted in breeding a clumsier sow with reduced mothering abilities.

Other factors that may increase the risk of piglets being crushed in intensive systems include leg weakness due to extended connement in crates, and the hard oors of the sow stalls that,unlike soft outdoor nests, do not cushion the piglets from damage.

Piglets in intensive farms are removed from their mothers (weaned) much earlier than would be the case naturally, typically at about four weeks.

GROUP HOUSINGSows may spend some of their pregnancies ingroup housing in concrete oored pens with no bedding materials provided. Some group-housed sows may be kept in ecoshelters with some bedding, or outdoors on grass.

FATTENING PENSOnce the piglets are removed from their mothers, they are placed in large groups in barren fattening pens with concrete or wooden-slatted oors. Fighting is the inevitable result of mixing unfamiliar pigs, and the barren environment.

Growing pigs are fed high-energy, quickly digested feed which sustains a high growth rate. Few are given straw or other brous material however, frustrating the animals innate urge to forage for food. As the piglets grow, the pens become overcrowded and the animals become increasingly stressed, restless and aggressive.

TRANSPORTATION Pigs are transported by trucks to slaughterhouses for slaughter and processing into meat. This is highly stressful for the animals because of the unfamiliar sights, sounds and crowding. Pigs are prone to travel sickness and are sensitive to temperature stress, dehydration, transport noise and vibration, and poor handling by humans. Signicant numbers die each year during transportation to slaughter.

POOR MANAGEMENT The treatment of pigs by humans has a major effect on pig welfare. Pigs can become frightened of humans if they receive poor treatment, and the pigs may become continually stressed as a result.

GROUP HOUSED SOWSAlthough group-housed sows suffer fewer health problems, crowding causes ghting and skin lesions on the sows legs and feet.

PIGLETSPiglet mortality is a major welfare problem in intensive farms. Modern breeds of pigs produce large litters with high piglet mortality. Deaths may be due to crushing by the sow, hypothermia and/or inadequate food.

Early weaning is stressful to piglets and can cause a reduction in feeding, diarrhoea and impaired immune function.

FATTENING PIGS Due to overcrowding and a lack of brous material to eat and forage in, stressed piglets may ght with their pen-mates and bite each others tails, possibly leading to serious injury and cannibalism.

Instead of providing more space and brous material, farmers cut off the piglets tails shortly after birth to decrease the chance of injury. This is a painful procedure carried out without anaesthesia, and may lead to long-term pain in the stump.

Lameness is also common in growing pigs where the ooring type and lack of suitable bedding leads to bruising, foot erosion and infections in cuts and abrasions.

Stereotypic behaviourAs a result of their concentrated and restricted maintenance diet, and the lack of available manipulable material such as straw, intensively farmed sows are constantly hungry and bored. Stereotypical behaviour often results, such as bar biting and head waving.

Physical health problemsCrating also affects the health of the pigs limbs, and reduces muscular strength due to the reduced ability to exercise, leading to lameness, reduced cardiovascular tness and increased morbidity.

Many sows in crates develop urinary problems, including cystitis (inammation of the bladder, usually due to infection). Cystitis may develop because of the sows inability to defecate in an area separate from their resting area, and due to their lameness, which may prevent the sow from urinating, which they do standing up.

Difculty in lying down and standing up, due to the animals lameness and close connement, can also lead to skin lesions as a result of the sows bumping against the crates. Inadequate ooring can lead to overgrown claws and pain.

High levels of ammonia in intensive pig

farms lead to inammation of the pigs eyes and respiratory tracts, and increased risk of respiratory distress and pneumonia.

Mental health problemsThe barren, unnatural environment and close connement can also lead to mental health problems. Because a sow cannot express most of the behaviour she is genetically programmed to carry out, she can become bored, frustrated and anxious, and may show signs of stress, apathy and symptoms consistent with clinical depression.

A crated sow cannot carry out normal mating behaviour due to her connement, leading to stress, frustration and impaired welfare. In addition, despite their physical separation, crated sows can still see unfamiliar sows either side of them and aggressive behaviour can result. Although physical injury does not occur, the pigs may feel constantly stressed and fearful.

Due to connement in a farrowing stall the sow is unable to build a private nest for her young before their birth, and she is unable to care for and wean her young as her instincts tell her, leading to stress and frustration.

Intensively farmed pigs in New Zealand live in barren

environments that do not allow them to fully satisfy their

behavioural needs, causing stress which can lead to physical and

mental illnesses.

PIG HEALTH AND WELFARE PROBLEMS Intensively farmed sows suffer poor physical and mental health due to their close connement in crates.

ALTERNATIVES TO FACTORY FARMING

OUTDOOR PRODUCTION In New Zealand, due to our temperate climate, a signicant proportion of pigs are farmed outdoors for part or all of their lives. Many farmers use a mixture of outdoor (extensive) and indoor (intensive) techniques (such as taking sows indoors to give birth in farrowing crates, or raising weaner pigs in intensive or extensive group housing).

GROUP HOUSINGSome farms raise their fattening pigs indoors in deep-bedded pens at lower densities than in intensive fattening pens. Such systems allow the piglets to satisfy more of their physical and behavioural needs, leading to less boredom and aggression. The piglets do not, however, have access to the outdoors, and they may be indoor bred (born in indoor farrowing crates, to sows previously conned to sow crates) or outdoor bred (in outdoor farrowing huts).

FREE-RANGE AND ORGANIC Free-range and organic farms keep their pigs outdoors (with appropriate shelter) for their entire lives. Huts are provided in which the sows farrow (give birth) and care for their piglets. Such systems can allow pigs to satisfy more of their physical and behavioural needs than indoor systems. The animals are, however, still highly dependent on the quality of the farms management and are highly vulnerable to how they are treated by humans.

Welfare problems that may be associated with outdoor systems include: inadequate shelter (to protect the animals from rain, cold and the sun); lameness; inadequate pasture and the insertion of nose rings that cause pain when the pig attempts to root in the ground, which are used to prevent pasture damage,. Free-range pigs also suffer the stress of transportation and slaughter at the end of their short lives.

ANIMAL WELFARE LEGISLATION Animals in New Zealand are protected by the Animal Welfare Act 1999 (AWA). Although the farming practices outlined in this information sheet are legal in New Zealand, they are at odds with the spirit of the AWA, which states that ...persons in charge of animals...[must] take all reasonable steps to ensure that the physical, health and behavioural needs of the animals are met in accordance with both - (i) good practice; and (ii) scientic knowledge...

Pig farming, along with a number of other animal industries, however, has exemption from this fundamental principle of the animal welfare law, through individual animal welfare codes. Therefore, although scientic research shows that the physical, health and behavioural needs of intensively farmed pigs are largely not met, this is legal under current New Zealand law.

The National Animal Welfare Advisory Committee (NAWAC) reviewed the pig welfare code between 2001 and 2005, and acknowledged that dry sow stalls and farrowing crates did not meet all the obligations of the AWA. Nonetheless, due to lobbying by the pig industry, the nal code

allowed farrowing crates to be used for six weeks, and only limited dry sow stall use to four weeks after mating, from 2015.

Dry sow stalls are banned in the United Kingdom and Sweden, and will soon be phased out in Finland, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Denmark. Farrowing crates are also banned in Sweden and Switzerland.

About 42 per cent of the pig meat sold in New Zealand is produced on factory farms overseas, in countries that may have even lower welfare standards than New Zealand. This meat is not labelled by country of production, so consumers have no way of knowing how and where their pig meat was produced.

ABOUT SAFE Visit www.safe.org.nz to learn more about SAFEs work in New Zealand. SAFE campaigns against the cruel mistreatment of animals and has been speaking out against factory farming for the past 25 years.

VOLUNTEERINGSAFE relies on volunteers to help spread the message. If you would like to become an active volunteer, email safe@safe.org.nz to register.

LOVEPIGS CAMPAIGNSAFEs LovePigs campaign promotes respect towards pigs and actively campaigns against factory farming. Visit the website at www.lovepigs.org.nz to nd out more about the campaign.

SAFE INFORMATION SHEET

ACTION POINTS

STAY INFORMEDSubscribe to SAFEs free email mailing list to receive regular campaign bulletins. Visit www.safe.org.nz

BOYCOTT CRUEL PORKThe most effective action you can take to help pigs is to stop buying factory farmed pork, bacon or ham products. Even better, become a vegetarian.

MAKE A DONATIONDonate more than $20 and receive a free Pig Rescue Pack. Visit www.safe.org.nz

MAKE YOUR HOUSE PIG FRIENDLY!Make your household pork free! At the very least, have a pork-free week once a month!

VISIT YOUR MPAsk your MP what are they prepared to do to help pigs. MPs, like most people, often know very little about factory farming and are usually shocked when told the facts.

SAFE 2010