Today's pig farm is often a depressing collection of windowless metal buildings, concealing pigs confined in crates, cages, and bare concrete pens.

In the last decade, well over half of all the family farms raising pigs have been put out of that business. Enabled by drugs that allow animals to be intensively confined, and encouraged by federal tax breaks that favored large-scale corporate agriculture, industrial pig farms now dominate the pork industry. This has created dire consequences for family farmers, consumers, the environment, and, of course, the animals.

Here a Crate, There a Crate
Factory farming has long been associated with veal production. But there is another animal who suffers confinement similar to that of the veal calf – the breeding sow. And in her case, the agony is prolonged for years.

After impregnation, the sow is locked in a narrow metal gestation crate. The width of the crate varies from 18 to 24 inches, and the length is 7 feet, extending just beyond the sow's own body. She is restrained in this unbedded, cement-floored crate for her entire pregnancy - nearly four months. She is unable to walk or turn around.

She is fed at one end of the crate, while her feces collects at the other. Some crates are so narrow that simply standing up and lying down require strenuous effort. On some factory farms, the sow is literally tied to the floor by a short chain or strap around her neck. Deprived of all exercise and any opportunity to fulfill her behavioral needs, she lives in a constant state of distress.

Factory farm apologists claim that crated pigs are "content." As proof, they point to the fact that the sow continues to produce piglets. But it is the sow's strong reproductive system that enables her to continue reproducing in spite of the crate.

The crate takes a terrible toll on these female pigs who suffer greatly from leg problems and intolerable stress. Here’s how animal behavior experts Drs. Andrew Fraser and David Broom describe the existence of crated and tethered sows: “Confined sows are not able to groom normally, they may have difficulty thermoregulating, most are fed small volumes of food infrequently, they cannot interact normally with other sows and they cannot move away from people or other potentially hazardous stimuli.”

According to Fraser and Broom, one response shown by animals to such situations where they have little control over their environment is to perform repetitive movements, called stereotypies, such as rubbing the snout back and forth across the front of the crate or frantically and repeatedly biting the metal bars.

Scientists studying these behaviors found they stimulate the release of endorphins in the sow’s brain. This “self-narcotization” may provide a temporary measure of relief from the torment of crate confinement. Or these abnormal behaviors may be simply the desperate expression of frustrated animals pushed to the point of madness.

Agricultural scientists note that the behavior exhibited by confined sows “resembles, in many respects, the development in humans of chronic psychiatric disorders….” In Farm Animal Behaviour and Welfare (1997), Fraser and Broom cite one study where some tethered sows performed stereotypies for an average of 80 percent of day-time observation periods. “The stereotypies are an indicator of poor welfare and they are frequent in most sow stall and tether units,” noted the authors.

Piglets, Pain, and Profits
When a pregnant sow is on free-range, she will isolate herself from the herd one or two days before delivering her piglets. During this time, she will seek a site where she will bring materials to build a nest. Even when raised in the shelter of a barn, domestic sows who are given straw and room to move will put together a nest for their piglets. The mother and her piglets form strong bonds. She will wait several days before leading her young out to meet and integrate with the rest of the herd.

Confinement severely frustrates the natural behaviors involved in nest seeking, nest building, and the rearing of piglets. Except for the few days when she is being bred, the sow on a factory farm is constantly locked in a crate.

Near the end of her pregnancy, the sow is moved from the gestation crate to yet another restraining device, the farrowing crate. Against all her natural instincts, she must give birth to piglets, nurse them, eat, sleep, defecate, drink, stand, and lie in the same cramped space.

The nursing period is cut drastically short by the premature separation of the piglets from their mother. The sow is immediately re-impregnated - and then sent back to an even bleaker existence in the gestation crate. This vicious cycle is repeated over and over again until the sow's "productivity" wanes, and she is sent to slaughter.

The rationale given for the farrowing crate (as distinct from the gestation crate) is that, by immobilizing the sow, it prevents her from lying on and crushing her young. But crushing is a problem created by a lack of space and an inadequate housing design.

When a sow is given sufficient space, she enters the nest sweeping the floor with her snout, sniffing for piglets and pushing them away. Once she has cleared a place in which to lie down, she does so slowly and carefully.

For countless generations, pigs have survived in the wild and on farms without the "benefit" of being locked in small crates. Both common sense and overwhelming scientific evidence show that the crates are not only cruel - but also unnecessary.

Long-term university studies and farm records prove that piglet survival is no better in the crates than in well-designed, less restrictive housing. In one seven-year study, the average number of piglets weaned from each sow in a farrowing crate was no higher than the average number for sows kept in open space.

On the factory farm, piglets are removed from their mother at 3 weeks of age. This is far short of the natural 13 to 17 week nursing period or even the six weeks allowed on less intensive farms. The piglets are put into crowded pens. Floors are bare wire mesh, perforated metal, plastic-coated metal, fiberglass, or concrete. There is no straw or other bedding.

In such cramped, stressful, and barren environments the young pigs commonly begin tail-biting. Rather than providing sufficient space and the environmental variation necessary to eliminate such conditions, producers cut off the pigs' tails. And although innumerable drugs are given to pigs throughout their lives - pain relievers are not among them.

To the factory farmer, these sensitive and intelligent animals are no more than "production units," converting feed and feed additives into pork products.

Drugs and Pork
Factory farming would not be possible without the routine use of antibiotics and other drugs. Only with drugs can animals survive the overcrowding, stress, and severe deprivation.

As reported by the National Academy of Sciences, "The practice of feeding livestock a wide variety of antibiotics at subtherapeutic levels has become commonplace as producers have adopted confinement [practices]... The widespread use of antibiotics has reinforced a trend not to manage for disease prevention, but rather to accept the costs of antibiotic feeding as a routine production expense."

Agribusiness drug companies dismiss the dangers inherent in the pork industry's reliance upon pharmaceutical chemicals. Public health scientists, however, are greatly concerned about harmful drug residues in pork and other factory farm products.

Among the wide variety of hazardous drugs used in pork production is sulfamethazine. This drug is primarily used as a growth stimulant and to control the disease that is so rampant in the polluted pig factory environment.

Though the safety of sulfamethazine was never proven, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) buckled under pressure from drug companies and has permitted its use in pork production since the 1970's. This irresponsibility on the part of the FDA has grave consequences. In 1988, the National Center for Toxilogical Research released studies proving that sulfamethazine is carcinogenic. It is estimated that over 70 percent of pork producers are using sulfamethazine.

The USDA has repeatedly found residues of sulfamethazine in pigs at U.S. slaughterhouses. While statistics fluctuate from year to year, illegal levels have been found in as many as 1 out of every 10 pig carcasses tested - while even "legal" levels have never been proven safe.

The chronic nature of this drug residue problem is also noted by the FDA, which admits that, "Residues from the use of sulfamethazine in swine have been a serious problem confronting both government and industry for ten years or more." These startling facts are even more alarming since the USDA does not prevent most tainted pork from entering the food supply. Only a small percentage of meat in U.S. slaughterhouses is ever tested for drug and chemical residues. The vast majority passes, untested, into the marketplace.

Hog Hormones
Though it is already acknowledged as an industry-wide problem, chemically-laced pork may soon become even more widespread. Drug companies are beginning to push a new hormone, Porcine Somatotropin (also known as PST), to reduce the high fat content of pork. With health-conscious consumers cutting back on pork and other fat-laden meats, proponents of PST hope that the hormone will make pork products more acceptable.

Altering animal physiology, however, often creates new hazards. Bovine Somatotropin (BST), for instance, is promoted by drug companies for its ability to increase milk production in dairy cows. BST also increases production-related disease and the need for more drugs to treat them.

Similarly, the use of PST by the pork industry can engender unforeseen hazards. And it will be the large-scale pig factories that will be most able to afford this new hormone, creating yet another disadvantage for the smaller, non-industrialized farmer.

Environmental Pollution
Pig factories exact a price not only from the animals held captive, but also from the environment. Industrial farms devour vast quantities of fossil fuels and fresh water - returning to the environment pollutants in many forms.

In a water-scarce region of Colorado, one pig factory alone produces 350,000 pigs annually, consuming nearly 2 million gallons of fresh water every day - much of it used to flush out massive amounts of manure.

Waste from pig factories is pumped into huge, open pits where it collects until it is dispersed over the land. Because the area over which this manure can be disposed of is limited, concentrations of waste are dumped on the land in excess of the soil's ability to assimilate it. Among the results are uncontrolled runoff and the contamination of surface and ground water.

The environmental hazards inside the pig factories are among the worst to be found in any industry. The closed buildings of the industrialized pig farm contain a dangerous combination of noxious fumes, including ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, feed dust, and decomposing fecal matter.

The American Lung Association, in collaboration with the University of Iowa, provides these sobering facts:
"Nearly 70% of swine confinement workers experience one or more symptoms of respiratory illness or irritation... The turnover rate of swine confinement workers is very high, and some owners have had to sell their operations because they could not work in their own units..." Chronic bronchitis is "experienced by 58 percent of all swine confinement workers...and is suffered by three times as many swine confinement workers as by farmers who work in [non-confinement] swine housing units..."

The wastes that are collected and decomposing in pits directly beneath the pig pens pose extremely toxic hazards for pigs and humans alike. As noted by the American Lung Association, "Animals have died and workers have become seriously ill in confinement buildings when hydrogen sulfide rises from agitated pits underneath. Several workers have died when entering a pit during or soon after the emptying process to repair pumping equipment. Persons attempting to rescue these workers have also died...."

While factory farm workers can at least wear protective masks, the pigs that must breathe toxic fumes 24 hours a day for their entire lives have no such option. Agricultural research has documented that a large number of confined pigs display symptoms of pneumonia or other respiratory diseases.

Communities have fought back against the environmental, public health, and economic consequences of industrialized pig farming. In South Dakota, family farmers organized to prevent construction of an enormous corporate-owned factory. After a protracted battle, the voters of South Dakota approved a state referendum in 1998 outlawing non-family corporate ownership of hog farms. A federal judge overturned the law in 2002; the state is appealing the decision,

Unfortunately, factory farms have massive financial resources to fight public opposition. After being turned away in South Dakota, the pork company simply picked up its blueprints and moved to Colorado. Local environmentalists, family farmers, and other concerned citizens fought the construction. But agribusiness-influenced politicians paved the way for the pig factory's construction. A coalition of Colorado farmers, animal advocates, and environmentalists responded by sponsoring a successful ballot initiative that placed restrictions on hog farms in the state.

Factory farms of such monstrous size displace hundreds of smaller-scale family farmers who are more inclined and better able to raise animals responsibly. Unfortunately, the pig factories continue to use their massive financial resources and political influence to squeeze smaller-scale family farms out of business.

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