The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) conducted an undercover investigation that documented extremely inhumane treatment of pigs and piglets at a subsidiary of Smithfield Foods, the world’s largest pork producer.

Here’s what the HSUS says:

The investigator—who spent a month working inside a Smithfield-owned facility in Waverly, Va.— documented numerous abuses including the following:

Female breeding pigs were crammed inside “gestation crates” so small the animals could barely move for virtually their entire lives. The animals engaged in stereotypic behaviors such as biting the bars of crates, indicating poor well-being in the extreme confinement conditions. Some had bitten their bars so incessantly that blood from their mouths coated the fronts of their crates. The breeding pigs also suffered injuries from sharp crate protrusions and open pressure sores that developed from their unyielding confinement.

The investigator never saw a veterinarian at the operation. A barn manager told the investigator to ignore a pig with a basketball-sized abscess on her neck, and then cut the abscess open with an unsterilized razor.

Employees jabbed a lame pig’s neck and back with gate rods to force her to move.
Three times, the investigator informed employees that a pig was thrown into a dumpster alive. The animal had been shot in the forehead with a captive bolt gun, which is designed to render an animal unconscious, and was thrown in the dumpster still alive and breathing.

Employees mishandled piglets and tossed them into carts.

Some piglets prematurely born in gestation crates fell through the slats into the manure pits.
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Sections: Vegan News
Topics: animal rights, animal welfare, bacon, cruelty, farrowing crates, gestation crates, ham, hsus, investigation, news, piglets, pigs, pork, Smithfield Foods, undercover, Vegan