MH Vatavaran, the Environment Society of Miranda House in collaboration with AAVYA , presented a documentary “Dominion”, an Aussie Farms production under the Farms Transparency Project showcasing the horrors and barbaric, inhumane behavior meted out to the animals of dairy industry. Here's a brief report on one of the animals the documentary discusses about.
Pigs are subjected to horrific conditions on factory farms, but their suffering is unseen. Pigs are gentle animals with complex personalities. Read on to learn what the millions of pigs raised and killed for food every year experience on factory farms. Female pigs are repeatedly impregnated through artificial insemination. Throughout their pregnancies and after giving birth, mother pigs are kept in ‘Gestation Crates’. These crates are so small that the pigs can barely move in them. They become distressed when separated from their babies.
Castration - Male piglets are castrated with a knife shortly after being born, usually without relief. Tail Docking - Because of crowded space on factory farms, pigs become stressed. One of the most harmful behavior is biting their tails. Instead of giving pigs more room to help relieve their stress, meat producers cut off the pig’s tail without an anesthetic process.
Ear Notching -To identify each pig, workers cut off sensitive parts of their ears to create patterns. Transport -Due to their unnaturally large size and lack of space, factory-farmed pigs often develop arthritis. They can become trapped in their waste in dirty feedlots which spreads diseases. Despite this, they are still loaded onto crowded trucks and transported to slaughters. Pigs are trapped from fields by trained aggressive dogs and killed on sites by workers in a very ill manner with sharp objects leads to death at the moment.
Improving Animal Welfare in Pig Slaughterhouses, How to reduce stress, suffering and ease handling.
Uploading pigs in a small group is better, as in this way they can move more easily and calmly, also it reduces stress. Allow the pigs to rest for 2-4 hours before slaughter, it will reduce their pain. Make sure that the Ventilation System works well. In small cages, Pigs cannot sweat and therefore can overheat easily. Heat stress causes a lot of suffering and is one of the most common cause of death among pigs. Make sure that there is drinking water in the lairage pen, enough space and no draft. Prevent sharp corners or dead-ends in passageways. During CO2 stunning, Pigs are stunned in groups but the inhalation of CO2 causes approximately 20 seconds of severe fear, breathlessness and a painful burning sensation in the air passageway. So it should be banned. In electrical stunning, Pigs are moved into a chute of approximately 10 meters in length where the pigs move in a single file towards the electric prongs that move onto their heads automatically and stun them. Pigs are herd animals so they resist being separated from the group.
Electric Prods are often used at this point to force pigs to enter the single-file chute. When a slaughterhouse chose an electrical stunning system, it is important that this ‘stress point ‘ be dealt with. The use of Electric Pods is not necessary for a well – constructed passageway. Always make sure that the pigs are stunned properly. At last, I want to say that we should also take care of animal welfare instead of only profits.
-By Archana K. Meena
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