Pigs are smart
The associations people have made with the word, ‘pig’, are less than glamorous. In fact, there are downright negative connotations attached to the word, which is why we use it to insult people. But, let’s put aside our preconceived ideas of what we think a pig is, let’s take a look at who they really are.
Pigs have been touted as the smartest, and the cleanest domestic animals in the world. The phrases, “sweat like a pig” or “smell like a pig”, may come to mind. But, consider that pigs don’t have sweat glands, and therefore, can’t sweat (except on the very ends of their snouts). The lack of sweat glands means lack of odor - affording no credibility to either statement.
To compensate for the lack of a natural way to bring their body temperature down, pigs seek out water or mud. Pigs rolling in mud may look uncouth, but they are actually being quite smart. The mud not only keeps them cool, but keeps biting pests at bay, and prevents sunburn.
As Smart as the Primates
Intelligence research was done with pigs in the 1990s. One of the experiments was to train the pigs to move the cursor on a video screen with their snouts. When the pigs used the cursors again, they were able to distinguish between the scribbles they already knew, and the scribbles they were seeing for the first time. The pigs learned this skill as fast as the chimpanzees.
All species of pig are smarter than dogs, and capable of abstract representation. “They can hold an icon in their mind, and remember it at a later date,” says Professor Stanley Curtis of Penn State University, who discovered that pigs dominate at video games with joy sticks. Curtis goes on to say, “Pigs are able to focus with an intensity I have never seen in a chimp.”
Smarter Than a Three-Year-Old Child
Other tests were done where the pigs were taught the meaning of simple words and phrases. Several years later, the instructions were repeated, and the pigs still remembered what to do. The same thing was done with different objects placed in front of them. They were taught to jump over, sit by, or retrieve the item. Three years later, they could distinguish between the items.
The studies also showed:
Source
Pigs have been touted as the smartest, and the cleanest domestic animals in the world. The phrases, “sweat like a pig” or “smell like a pig”, may come to mind. But, consider that pigs don’t have sweat glands, and therefore, can’t sweat (except on the very ends of their snouts). The lack of sweat glands means lack of odor - affording no credibility to either statement.
To compensate for the lack of a natural way to bring their body temperature down, pigs seek out water or mud. Pigs rolling in mud may look uncouth, but they are actually being quite smart. The mud not only keeps them cool, but keeps biting pests at bay, and prevents sunburn.
As Smart as the Primates
Intelligence research was done with pigs in the 1990s. One of the experiments was to train the pigs to move the cursor on a video screen with their snouts. When the pigs used the cursors again, they were able to distinguish between the scribbles they already knew, and the scribbles they were seeing for the first time. The pigs learned this skill as fast as the chimpanzees.
All species of pig are smarter than dogs, and capable of abstract representation. “They can hold an icon in their mind, and remember it at a later date,” says Professor Stanley Curtis of Penn State University, who discovered that pigs dominate at video games with joy sticks. Curtis goes on to say, “Pigs are able to focus with an intensity I have never seen in a chimp.”
Smarter Than a Three-Year-Old Child
Other tests were done where the pigs were taught the meaning of simple words and phrases. Several years later, the instructions were repeated, and the pigs still remembered what to do. The same thing was done with different objects placed in front of them. They were taught to jump over, sit by, or retrieve the item. Three years later, they could distinguish between the items.
The studies also showed:
- Pigs lead complex social lives that behaviorists once believed to be true only of primates.
- Mother pigs sing to their piglets while they are nursing.
- They excel at video games that would be hard for a young child, and sometimes better than the primates.
- Pigs dream.
- Pigs have a good sense of direction, and can find their way home from long distances.
- They learn from watching one another.
- Pigs outsmart each other. One will often follow another pig to food before grabbing it away from him, and the pig who was tricked will change behaviors to reduce how many times it is tricked.
Source
EU pig farm investigation
Compassion in World Farmings recent investigation into pig farming in six EU Member States suggests that the vast majority of pigs reared in the EU are being farmed illegally. EU legislation requires pigs to be given sufficient straw or similar rooting material so that they can engage in their natural behaviours of investigating and manipulating their environment. However, most EU pigs are reared in fully slatted systems where such provision is almost impossible.
Bored and frustrated in the barren world of the factory farm, pigs sometimes bite each others tails. To prevent this farmers often dock cut off part of the tail. Routine tail-docking is prohibited - farmers must try to prevent tail biting by improving the conditions in which the pigs are kept. Yet despite the ban on routine tail-docking, a report by EFSA shows that over 90% of pigs in the EU are tail-docked.
Bored and frustrated in the barren world of the factory farm, pigs sometimes bite each others tails. To prevent this farmers often dock cut off part of the tail. Routine tail-docking is prohibited - farmers must try to prevent tail biting by improving the conditions in which the pigs are kept. Yet despite the ban on routine tail-docking, a report by EFSA shows that over 90% of pigs in the EU are tail-docked.
Mercy For Animals undercover investigation
A new Mercy For Animals undercover investigation provides a shocking look into one of the nation's largest pork producers -- Iowa Select Farms in Kamrar, Iowa. At this factory farm, mother sows and their piglets are forced to suffer brutal abuse and lives of unrelenting confinement and misery.
Between April and June of 2011, an MFA investigator documented:
- Mother sows confined to barren metal crates barely larger than their own bodies -- unable to turn around or lie down comfortably for nearly their entire lives
- Workers ripping out the testicles of conscious piglets without the use of painkillers
- Piglets suffering with herniated intestines, due to botched castration
- Conscious piglets having their tails painfully sliced into and yanked off with dull clippers
- Large, open, pus-filled wounds and pressure sores
- Sick and injured pigs left to languish and slowly die without proper veterinary care
- Mother pigs -- physically taxed from constant birthing -- suffering from distended, inflamed, bleeding, and usually fatal uterine prolapses
- Management training workers to throw piglets across the room -- comparing it to a "roller coaster ride"
Between April and June of 2011, an MFA investigator documented:
- Mother sows confined to barren metal crates barely larger than their own bodies -- unable to turn around or lie down comfortably for nearly their entire lives
- Workers ripping out the testicles of conscious piglets without the use of painkillers
- Piglets suffering with herniated intestines, due to botched castration
- Conscious piglets having their tails painfully sliced into and yanked off with dull clippers
- Large, open, pus-filled wounds and pressure sores
- Sick and injured pigs left to languish and slowly die without proper veterinary care
- Mother pigs -- physically taxed from constant birthing -- suffering from distended, inflamed, bleeding, and usually fatal uterine prolapses
- Management training workers to throw piglets across the room -- comparing it to a "roller coaster ride"
Upon reviewing the undercover footage, world-renowned animal behaviorist Dr. Jonathan Balcombe denounced the facility, stating that "this video depicts scenes of unbearable suffering and inexcusable neglect. ... This farm should be closed down at once."
Veterinarian Dr. Armaiti May also condemned the operation, stating, "I was greatly disturbed and appalled to watch footage of such horrifying cruelty and neglect towards pigs." Dr. May further stated:
"I recommend group housing be instituted which allows enough space for pigs to turn around and extend their limbs without touching the sides of the enclosures or each other. All surgical procedures including castrations should be done only with the pigs anesthetized and using sterile technique."
Subjecting animals to a lifetime of confinement in crates so small they are virtually immobilized is perhaps the cruelest form of institutionalized animal abuse in existence. A growing number of animal welfare experts opposes the use of gestation crates, concluding what common sense should have told us all along: animals with legs should have room to move.
Dr. Temple Grandin, who is considered the world's leading expert on farmed-animal care and is an animal welfare advisor to the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the meat industry, asserts that "gestation crates for pigs are a real problem. ... Basically, you're asking a sow to live in an airline seat ... I think it's something that needs to be phased out."
Sadly, grocery giants Kroger, Costco, Safeway, and Hy-Vee condone confining animals in crates barely larger than their bodies by selling pork from producers who use gestation crates -- including Iowa Select Farms. These corporations have both the power and ethical responsibility to reject this abusive factory farming practice by immediately adopting policies that require suppliers to phase out their use of gestation crates.
Confining mother pigs in such crates is so patently cruel that the practice has been banned by the entire European Union, New Zealand, and the states of Florida, Arizona, Oregon, Colorado, California, Maine and Michigan.
Yet, while other states make progress to prevent cruelty to farmed animals, legislators in Iowa -- the largest pork-producing state in the nation -- are actively working to conceal it. At the behest of factory farm interests, Iowa legislators are considering an "ag-gag" bill that seeks to silence and intimidate whistleblowers who document and expose animal abuse. As this new investigation graphically illustrates, with not a single federal law providing protection to animals on factory farms, and Iowa state anti-cruelty law largely exempting farmed animals, legislators should be working to enact laws protecting animals, not abusers.
As MFA works to expose and end the exploitation of animals at the hands of the meat, egg and dairy industries, consumers still hold the greatest power of all to prevent needless suffering of farmed animals by adopting a healthy and humane vegan diet.
To sign the petition to help end this cruelty, visit: http://mercyforanimals.org/pigabuse/take-action.aspx
Veterinarian Dr. Armaiti May also condemned the operation, stating, "I was greatly disturbed and appalled to watch footage of such horrifying cruelty and neglect towards pigs." Dr. May further stated:
"I recommend group housing be instituted which allows enough space for pigs to turn around and extend their limbs without touching the sides of the enclosures or each other. All surgical procedures including castrations should be done only with the pigs anesthetized and using sterile technique."
Subjecting animals to a lifetime of confinement in crates so small they are virtually immobilized is perhaps the cruelest form of institutionalized animal abuse in existence. A growing number of animal welfare experts opposes the use of gestation crates, concluding what common sense should have told us all along: animals with legs should have room to move.
Dr. Temple Grandin, who is considered the world's leading expert on farmed-animal care and is an animal welfare advisor to the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the meat industry, asserts that "gestation crates for pigs are a real problem. ... Basically, you're asking a sow to live in an airline seat ... I think it's something that needs to be phased out."
Sadly, grocery giants Kroger, Costco, Safeway, and Hy-Vee condone confining animals in crates barely larger than their bodies by selling pork from producers who use gestation crates -- including Iowa Select Farms. These corporations have both the power and ethical responsibility to reject this abusive factory farming practice by immediately adopting policies that require suppliers to phase out their use of gestation crates.
Confining mother pigs in such crates is so patently cruel that the practice has been banned by the entire European Union, New Zealand, and the states of Florida, Arizona, Oregon, Colorado, California, Maine and Michigan.
Yet, while other states make progress to prevent cruelty to farmed animals, legislators in Iowa -- the largest pork-producing state in the nation -- are actively working to conceal it. At the behest of factory farm interests, Iowa legislators are considering an "ag-gag" bill that seeks to silence and intimidate whistleblowers who document and expose animal abuse. As this new investigation graphically illustrates, with not a single federal law providing protection to animals on factory farms, and Iowa state anti-cruelty law largely exempting farmed animals, legislators should be working to enact laws protecting animals, not abusers.
As MFA works to expose and end the exploitation of animals at the hands of the meat, egg and dairy industries, consumers still hold the greatest power of all to prevent needless suffering of farmed animals by adopting a healthy and humane vegan diet.
To sign the petition to help end this cruelty, visit: http://mercyforanimals.org/pigabuse/take-action.aspx
The shocking truth about pig farms
a documentary by Animal Equality
Shocking footage by Animal Equality reveals how workers routinely kill pigs by slamming them against the floor and pigs are hit, kicked or have fingers thrust into their eyes to force them to stand or walk.
Countless scenes of cannibalism have been witnessed - as much on organic or 'free-range' farms as on factory farms - together with the agonising deaths which sick pigs are condemned to for their failure to make a profit for the farmer, on occasions being tossed while still alive into refuse containers filled with corpses.
Countless scenes of cannibalism have been witnessed - as much on organic or 'free-range' farms as on factory farms - together with the agonising deaths which sick pigs are condemned to for their failure to make a profit for the farmer, on occasions being tossed while still alive into refuse containers filled with corpses.
Mothers give birth surrounded by excrement while babies lie dying around them, pigs eat these same babies, and animals with captivity-induced psychological disorders bite the bars and repeatedly bang their heads against the stalls in which they live as they desperately try to escape.
Animal Equality spent over two years, between 2008 and 2010, filming the lives and deaths of pigs on farms and in slaughterhouses throughout Spain, with 60 activists entering a total of 172 farms located throughout the country.
Animal Equality considers that respecting animals means rejecting their use, whether for food, clothing, entertainment, experimentation or for any other purpose. Respecting animals means going vegan.
www.animalequality.net
Animal Equality spent over two years, between 2008 and 2010, filming the lives and deaths of pigs on farms and in slaughterhouses throughout Spain, with 60 activists entering a total of 172 farms located throughout the country.
Animal Equality considers that respecting animals means rejecting their use, whether for food, clothing, entertainment, experimentation or for any other purpose. Respecting animals means going vegan.
www.animalequality.net
How many MEN
would like to be placed in this device?
Poster by Karrel Christopher
... and the abuse doesn't end there!
Poster by Karrel Christoper
Pig farm documentary
Dire agony from first breath till last
In the following videos, you will see the life and death of many pigs in factory farms in Spain. For many this reality has remained hidden until now. But the situation is equally sad for many species of animals around the world.
It is time that we put ourselves in their place and feel the injustice of what we do to them. It is in our hands to stop all this.
It is time that we put ourselves in their place and feel the injustice of what we do to them. It is in our hands to stop all this.
The Price of Bacon
Soon after this bad news about Peppa’s health, while I sat in a café, I couldn’t help but overhear two women discussing their shopping and the price of food. They were talking about bacon and where they could get the cheapest bacon in town. I was transfixed.
Here was I, about to take on the possibility of hundreds of dollars worth of vet bills to save a pig, and these people were arguing cents over the corpse of a dead one.
Here was I, about to take on the possibility of hundreds of dollars worth of vet bills to save a pig, and these people were arguing cents over the corpse of a dead one.
When did life lose its value in this way? When did we stop seeing meat as the dead remains of a once-living-breathing-loving being and start seeing it as something to buy cheaply and devour?
Somehow we have devalued other species lives to the point where we can happily haggle over their dead bodies without a thought for anything but our own finances. Next time you walk past a butcher’s window or a delicatessen in your supermarket check out the prices, and you will soon work out the going rate for a life nowadays. The saddest part of all is that the poor mother of the animal that they were coldly discussing was not part of the economic decision—and was not able to tell anybody her baby was not for sale.
Excerpt from The Price of Bacon
Somehow we have devalued other species lives to the point where we can happily haggle over their dead bodies without a thought for anything but our own finances. Next time you walk past a butcher’s window or a delicatessen in your supermarket check out the prices, and you will soon work out the going rate for a life nowadays. The saddest part of all is that the poor mother of the animal that they were coldly discussing was not part of the economic decision—and was not able to tell anybody her baby was not for sale.
Excerpt from The Price of Bacon
