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Farm Sanctuary Releases Statement Corroborating Abuse Captured by PETA’s Undercover Investigation of Iowa Pig Farm

Pigs rescued from Midwest floods now residing at Farm Sanctuary show signs of systemic abuse throughout pork industry

WATKINS GLEN, NY – September 18, 2008 – Farm Sanctuary, the nation’s leading farm animal protection organization, today released a statement in support of the newly released PETA video exposing animal cruelty at an Iowa pig farm. In June 2008, Farm Sanctuary and a coalition of animal protection groups rescued 68 pigs off a levee in southeastern Iowa who were abandoned after floodwaters ripped through factory farms in the region, drowning thousands of pigs. Today, those rescued pigs are under the care of Farm Sanctuary at the organization’s Watkins Glen, N.Y. shelter. Having tended to the care and rehabilitation of these animals for the past 2 ½ months, Farm Sanctuary has found wounds consistent with abuse captured on video by PETA’s undercover investigator, which indicates that such abuse is systemic and not isolated.

“Farm Sanctuary thanks PETA for uncovering the daily abuses that pigs raised for pork endure at the hands of a cruel industry that considers brutal treatment of sensitive, intelligent animals as business as usual,” said Susie Coston, national shelter director at Farm Sanctuary. “All of the 68 pigs we rescued showed signs of abuse that went far beyond the ailments that afflicted the pigs after the floodwaters rose.”

Farm Sanctuary’s experience caring for the pigs rescued from factory farms in Iowa, the largest pork producing state, confirm that many of the abuses captured on video are systemic.  These abuses include:

• Tail docking
• Castration
• Untreated chronic ailments such as foot abscesses that had turned septic
• Old, infected wounds from rubbing against the bars of 2-foot-wide crates
• Hernias left untreated

Farm Sanctuary has learned from industry research that mutilations like tail docking and castration are performed throughout the factory farming industry without analgesics, or pain killers, as was captured in the PETA video. In the case of the pigs rescued from Iowa, all were tail docked and nearly all the young males were castrated, with the exception of one young “teaser” pig, used to prepare the sows for forced artificial insemination. Many of the Iowa pigs suffer from hernias that were left untreated and are fairly common to the industry. In fact, hernia operations, or any medical treatments are rarely performed on factory farmed pigs.

Most of the sows have chronic ailments that developed as a result of their confinement in 2-foot-wide gestation crates where they cannot turn around or lie down comfortably. These sows live in these crates for their entire 4 month pregnancies, before being moved to a slightly larger farrowing crate where they give birth and nurse for a period of two to three weeks until their babies are removed from them to be raised for slaughter.

“The breeding sows we rescued suffer from multiple ailments caused by their intensive confinement on factory farms,” added Coston. “We’ve treated several foot abscesses caused by standing on concrete flooring and we’ve treated infected sores on pigs’ shoulders caused by rubbing against the bars of their crates. All of them have broken or missing front teeth from neurotically biting on the bars of their crates. Many of these sows were far more terrified of humans than any pigs we’ve ever cared for in the past 22 years of Farm Sanctuary’s existence. When they first arrived they would spend entire days rubbing their noses against their rubber feed bowls or biting on fences. They would also issue a chilling scream and run away when anyone even tried to touch them. While these behaviors have ceased with long days outdoors, play sessions, wallow time in mud holes, and affection from one another and from people showing them kindness, these pigs will still chew on gates if they are temporarily restricted to a stall for medical treatment and they still don’t like to be touched on the back.”

The practice of piglet thumping, or slamming the smallest and weakest piglets to the ground, as shown in the PETA video, is not only common, but industry statistics show that about 10 percent of piglets will have died within the first two to three weeks of birth and many are killed by this standard industry practice. To give this percentage some perspective, approximately 105 million pigs are raised and slaughtered in the U.S. every year.

Farm Sanctuary has worked to end the use of gestation crates in the U.S. through its Anti-Confinement Campaign, with building success. Gestation crates are now outlawed in Florida, Arizona, Oregon and Colorado. This year, Farm Sanctuary has co-sponsored a ballot initiative, the YES! on Prop 2 Campaign, in California that would eliminate gestation crates, as well as veal crates for calves and battery cages for egg laying hens, in the nation’s largest agricultural state. Iowa farmers have expressed no intention of ending the use of gestation crates and other forms of cruel confinement for farm animals. In fact, several large factory farms in Iowa are funneling money into California to oppose this humane initiative. Farm Sanctuary is urging the public to take action to counter the abuses endemic to intensive confinement systems by supporting the YES! on Prop 2 campaign in California.  More information can be found at www.yesonprop2.org.

Farm Sanctuary is the nation's leading farm animal protection organization. Since incorporating in 1986, Farm Sanctuary has worked to expose and stop cruel practices of the "food animal" industry through research and investigations, legal and institutional reforms, public awareness projects, youth education, and direct rescue and refuge efforts. Farm Sanctuary shelters in Watkins Glen, N.Y., and Orland, Calif., provide lifelong care for hundreds of rescued animals, who have become ambassadors for farm animals everywhere by educating visitors about the realities of factory farming. Additional information can be found at http://www.farmsanctuary.org or by calling 607-583-2225.