Mother Pigs
Most mother pigs in the U.S. spend their adult lives confined to cramped metal crates. They never feel the affectionate nuzzle of a mate, and their natural desire to build a cozy, comfortable nest is thwarted. Instead, they're surrounded by cold metal bars and forced to lie on wet, feces-covered floors. Their lives are filled with misery and despair.
When they're old enough to give birth, female pigs are sexually violated and forcefully inseminated against their will. They are imprisoned for their entire pregnancies in "gestation crates," cages that are just 2 feet wide and too small for them even to turn around or lie down comfortably. They often experience health problems, such as ulcers and pressure sores, from lack of movement - and worse.
After giving birth, mother pigs are moved to "farrowing crates," enclosures similar to gestation crates, with only a tiny additional concrete area on which mothers can nurse their piglets. They are then returned to gestation crates and impregnated again, continuing the cycle of forced breeding and imprisonment.
Gestation and farrowing crates are so barbaric that they have been banned in the U.K. and Canada as well as in several U.S. states.
Pigs are highly intelligent creatures. This intensive confinement, loneliness, and deprivation often causes mother pigs to go insane, which is manifested in abnormal, neurotic behavior, such as incessantly chewing the air, biting cage bars, and pressing on water bottles. After three or four years, their bodies are exhausted - even though they are still quite young - and they are shipped off to slaughter.
There is NOTHING that makes any of this okay. We can thrive, healthily and happily, without eating pigs, without eating animals of any kind. These sensitive, intelligent, thinking, feeling animals do not deserve to be treated this way. No animal should be abused, for any reason, including our diet. Learn to go plant-based here.
Image Credit:
Kelly Lacy from Pexels
Eric Perlin