The video from the latest investigation shows mutilated pigs, piglets castrated without anaesthesia and sows locked in cages so small they cannot move at all. This is how the #SOSpig campaign begins, calling on large retailers to take action on Italian pig farms.
28506 is the name of one of the 500,000 breeding sows reared in Italy and is the subject of a new video collecting footage filmed by investigators from Essere Animali, who went undercover on pig farms. 28506 tells us about her life in a cage and the systematic mutilations carried out without anaesthesia on 9 million piglets just a few days old. These are terrible procedures — and, in the case of tail docking, also illegal — yet they are commonplace on virtually all Italian pig farms, including those in the PDO circuit.
During the first part of gestation and during farrowing, sows are confined in cages so small that they cannot move at all. They are imprisoned in these conditions for more than a third of their lives. The footage shows sows with sores caused by constant rubbing against the bars. On top of the physical wounds come the psychological ones. Pigs, social and intelligent animals, when subjected to these deprivations exhibit stereotyped behaviours and profound states of apathy. The industry justifies the use of crates on the grounds of a reduced risk of piglets being crushed, but, as the video shows, such incidents can still occur. If she were not trapped in a crate, the sow would make certain movements before lying down, the very purpose of which is to move her young out of the way.
According to an audit carried out at the end of November 2017 by the European Commission, 98 per cent of pigs reared in Italy undergo systematic tail docking, a practice that has been illegal in the European Union for 25 years. It has been shown that it does not reduce cannibalism, a phenomenon that occurs when pigs are reared in fattening pens and which should instead be addressed by providing environmental enrichment. Tail biting among pigs — known as caudophagy — is an abnormal behaviour that represents a response to boredom and frustration.
Male piglets also undergo surgical castration, a procedure intended to prevent boar taint, an unpleasant flavour that can develop during cooking of the meat. The practice is opposed by the Federation of Veterinarians of Europe (FVE) as it causes severe physical pain and behavioural changes. Our investigators also documented illegal operations carried out without anaesthesia or analgesia on piglets older than seven days by farm workers rather than by veterinarians, as the law requires.
To urgently put an end to the mutilation of piglets and the use of crates for sows, it is essential to call on large-scale organised retail to intervene. Supermarket chains can influence suppliers through their purchasing power and bind farms to policies that bring these brutal practices to an end.
With the #SOSpig campaign we are calling on large-scale organised retail to ensure that supermarket chains abandon these practices and drive structural change on farms. Signing and sharing the #SOSpig campaign petition is not the only meaningful action we can take. Industrial meat production, which causes an enormous waste of resources and significant greenhouse gas emissions, together with the now numerous video investigations through which courageous investigators have documented the conditions of animals on intensive farms and also inside slaughterhouses, prompts us towards a broader reflection on our diet.