Animal behaviourists consider them smarter than dogs. They are also friendly, loyal and really clean animals. When not confined in factory farms, pigs are social and protective with each other; they enjoy lying in the sun, playing with their peers and exploring the surrounding environment, with their huge nose.
These animals are dispossessed of the beneficial effects of sunlight and of feeling the grass under their feet: it is a cruel treatment, the one humans reserved to these magnificent animals.

The idea of «natural farms», where animals are able to live an “almost – life” before being slaughtered, as presented by mass media, has never existed. Although in the past their condition was not idyllic, from the introduction of the modern and intensive ways of farming, the situation worsened drastically.
These sensitive animals spend the entire life in cramped, filthy warehouses, under the constant stress of intense confinement and where it is denied them everything that is natural and fundamental.

From the moment they become fertile, sows spend the rest of their miserable lives in cold-metal, tiny gestation and farrowing cages, which are small to the point that mothers cannot even turn around on themselves and are forced to lay down on the same side of their body. These cages are separated from other pigs, and the loneliness to which these social animals are subjected to, drive them to go insane.
They are continuously impregnated until their bodies, exhausted,  start finding difficulties in getting pregnant. In that moment the cost – benefit of maintaining them become disadvantageous and they are sent to the slaughterhouse to be transformed in second-choice meat.

When piglets are just a few weeks, they are torn away from their overwrought mothers. Tails are docked, ears are mutilated and the ends of the teeth are snipped off with pliers, all in order to prevent the mutual aggression caused by the stress of a life of confinement. In addition, the males are physically (and non-surgical) castrated to eliminate the hormones, making them more docile and more likely to gain weight in short time. Obviously, no painkillers are given for pain relief, as well as veterinary assistance in the following period, because this would mean a net increase in costs. Then, young pigs spend their short lives in cramped, crowded pens on slabs of dirty concrete, until they reach the right weight.

In a way, these tortures to which pigs of all ages and gender are subjected to are similar to the ones reserved for hens and chicks (https://www.oipa.org/international/eggs-and-hens/)

Completely devoted to the cleanness by nature, factory – farmed pigs are forced to live amid their own faeces and vomit, when not amid the corpses of other pigs. The condition in which are kept are worsen than hell: extreme crowding, poor ventilation and grime cause pervasive diseases. By few months, many pigs suffer from lung lesions, ulcers and mange. To obviate the spreading deaths, pigs are fed with antibiotics (which inevitably are absorbed by their flesh, and so are eaten by the final consumer). Anyway, many pigs die from common infections. Because of sickness, lack of the possibility to move, and genetic manipulation (that make them grow too quickly), pigs develop arthritis and other joint problems. To save money, many farmers leave these ill animals dying: starving, beating them with metal sticks or slamming their heads against the floor.

When the time comes for slaughter, pigs are bulk loaded onto transport trucks that often travel for days through all weather conditions, without protection, food and water: reports suggest that each year more than 1 million pigs die during transportation, because of heat exhaustion in the hot season or arrive frozen in the cold one, or because of heart attacks due to the panic, that can be perceived and listened, as pigs constantly scream; while at least 40,000 are seriously injured by the time they reach the slaughterhouse.

The arrival at slaughterhouses is not an easement: when they see space in front of them, some pigs try to run, but spending all the life in an immobile state, pigs’ legs and lungs are so weak that they can barely move. They collapse and cannot walk anymore. They are beaten by the slaughterhouse’s workers, in order to push them in the last corridor they will see.

A typical slaughterhouse kills up to 1.100 pigs every single hour. This number makes evident the impossibility to give the animals a “humane”, painless deaths. Because of the great number, the daze is rapid, and so this phase is realized improperly. Therefore, many pigs are still alive and conscious when they reach the following phase: the scalding tank, to damp the flesh and remove the hairs.

According to the witness of a slaughterhouse worker: «There’s no way these animals can bleed out (and so lost consciousness) in the few minutes it takes to get up the ramp. By the time they hit the scalding tank, they’re still fully conscious and squealing. Happens all the time».

To put a definitive end to these agonies, OIPA claims to shift to a vegan diet, the only possibility to make sure all the animals stop suffer. A vegan alimentation is not a tasteless and sad diet. It is a lifestyle compatible with the everyone’s necessity: going vegan is choosing life.                
Learn more: https://www.oipa.org/international/veg/