Sadly, pigs living on factory farms are not permitted to show off their intelligence or follow their instinctive curiosity. In factory farms across the world, pigs are confined to barren, small steel cages. Mother pigs have it especially bad: inseminated in a cage no bigger than an average household refrigerator; with barely enough room to move, they are unable to even turn around.
- Confined: Mother pigs are cramped so tightly in cages, they can’t turn around. Their muscles wither and they become weak
- Mutilated: Piglets' teeth are ground or clipped, their tails are cut, and males are castrated. All in the first weeks of their lives, often without pain relief.
- Injured: Pigs raised for meat are kept in barren pens with uncomfortable flooring. They suffer from skin lesions and disease.
Learn more in 'A Pig's Tale: Exposing the facts of factory farming'.
No life for a pig
A life inside a cage the size of a refrigerator is no life for a pig at all. We're pushing for pigs to have the opportunity to express natural behaviour and socialize, free from the confines of cages and free from painful mutilations. In order to achieve those goals, we're calling on the industry to make a change.
There is a better way
Mother pigs don’t belong alone in cages. They should be free to socialize with other pigs. These intelligent creatures deserve a life beyond suffering.
We are working with producers to develop higher welfare systems, to get pigs out of cages and into social groups, to end painful mutilations and to provide manipulable materials to allow for expression of natural behaviour.
In contrast to factory farming, good animal welfare reduces stress, injury and disease, decreasing the need to use antibiotics too often.
