Liberate

On a weekday like any other I and a few others visited a North Island pig farm. Hoping out of our car several fields away from the farm the stench was immediately apparent. Quickly we walked towards the farm and after checking for vehicles we walked in through an open door.

Both the noise and smell hit me as I walked in and for several seconds overwhelmed all other senses. After a few seconds my eyes adjusted to the dim light and it wasn’t until then that I realised just how bad the place was. Several rows of rusty crates held roughly 200 pigs in this one shed. The pigs were confined in what can be roughly described as crates barely larger then they were. The shed was dilapidated with large holes in the walls and cobwebs hanging from the ceiling. If it wasn’t for the smell, I would have assumed it was just a long abandoned farm building. After standing at the entrance trying to get my bearings I walked towards a loud banging sound coming from further into the shed. As I got nearer to the sound it became clear that one boar was putting his snout through the bars and lifting the door to his cage as high as he could. After lifting it as high as it would go – a few centimetres he would drop it causing a large bang before repositioning himself to try again. During the entire time, we were there, this noise continued every few seconds as this pig tried to force open the door to its cage. Up and down the wall were other boars lying in small rectangular pens each covered in their own shit, many lying still on the concrete floor or incessantly chewing the bars of their pens. Both of these I would later learn were signs of stress induced depression.
The rest of the first shed was filled with crates containing females. These crates were around 60cm wide and each contained a pig that was easily 4 times my size. Every single one had obvious injuries, from scrapes and callouses caused by rubbing against the rusty bars to eyes streaming pus from untreated infections. All were covered in dozens of flies and their feeding troughs were filled with yellow scummy liquid. Many had stood up when we walked in but most quickly went back to lying or kneeling on the bare concrete floor. As the crates weren’t large enough to lie down in, most pigs had legs sticking into the crate beside them, further decreasing their neighbours 60cm. Some crates didn’t even have concrete bottoms and instead pigs were left to lie on bars with effluent running beneath them. The severe depression many were suffering from was painfully obvious in that those that didn’t even look up as we went past but instead lay staring into the distance.

Towards the back of the shed there were larger concrete enclosures each with three pigs in. The pigs in these enclosures got up when we approached them and one of us began scratching it. For a moment it was possible to imagine what it would be like if this pig were free.

After measuring pens and taking some photos we went into the next shed. Walking in I was hit immediately hit by a wall of air, hot and thick with ammonia. Spread out in a large shed were several hundred young pigs confined to small pens from one end of the shed to the other, grouped by size. Each pen contained about 20 pigs each climbing over each other in the cramped pens covered in shit. Walking round was difficult as the floor was slick with effluent and spilled food. The contrast between the young ones in this shed and the shed next door was stark, playful and friendly, but it was only a matter of time before these became the sick, broken adults in the crates next door. As we passed each pen, the piglets stuck their heads through the bars eager for some stimulation. After playing with some of the smaller ones it was time to leave and we walked out the way we came in.

Nothing I had read or seen could have led me to imagine how horrific this pig farm was. The noise and being surrounded by huge animals separated from you by a few bars at times overwhelmed all other senses and I found I had to block out the suffering of individuals pigs to be able to move throughout the sheds. The complete and utter lack of any stimulation or chance at happiness for these pigs was quite simply unbelievable, who would be sick enough to confine any living being in an area so small they can barely turn around? During the short time we were there, we constantly discovered animals in even worse condition and sights which at time made me feel physically sick – such as buckets of dead pigs near the door. I would encourage activists to visit farms like this if the opportunity comes up, seeing it first hand is unlike anything else.