Michael Sauers

March 27, 2025

This post is part of a continuing effort to educate people about factory farming.

The pigs we know are the domesticated version of wild boars. Wild boars are formidable creatures with strong survival instincts, impressive family loyalty and daunting physical presence. These awe-inspiring characteristics are difficult to see in domesticated pigs because their lives are short, hidden and full of cruelty.

Domesticated pigs live short lives (6 months – 1 year) in factory farms where they are fattened and then slaughtered. Male piglets are castrated, tail docked, disfigured (ears and teeth) and kept in filthy cramped quarters. Female piglets are used for breeding but many suffer the same fate as males, slaughter.

Once they reach market weight (hogs) they are killed. Each year, almost 1 million hogs die on route to typical slaughter houses where approximately 1000 hogs per hour are chopped up. They are prodded, stunned, scalded, hoisted and butchered. Savagery and speciesism on full display!

It has been concluded that eating meat results in a higher incidence of cancers and diabetes. Pork, as dead hogs are called, are known carriers of food borne pathogens including E. coli, trichinella, listeria, salmonella and tapeworms. They are typically fed and sprayed with antibiotics and pesticides in an attempt to hold down disease. It doesn’t work.

All in all, factory farming of pigs is horribly cruel. Our children, who adore story characters like Wilbur and Babe, would never tolerate the cruelty brought against these intelligent and sensitive creatures, if they were aware.

It is all unnecessary. Sapiens should be ashamed of themselves.