Now then, in this comparison of videos, we want to give you a retrospective overview about the life of the observed pigs. For that purpose we are going to show here the most important stations of both lives with a small fraction of the developed videos.

And for completion there are still 10 pictures which are chosen by chance and which were originated in those seven months. (Every time if you visit this page, different pictures will be shown.)

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Other posts that might be interesting:

• Slaughtering of X15 (0)
• X15′s last walk (1)
• X15 and his brothers and sisters shortly before slaughtering (0)

Other posts that might be interesting:

• Life of the pig-vision pigs – a retrospect (0)
• From mast into the truck (0)
• In piggery for 5 months (0)

Being in a small box, the mother is not able to take care for her piglets.

If piglets are in freedom, they are 4 months next to their mother. First abroad the group and afterwards in a group, there exists an intimate connection between mother and children. Piglets learn much from their mother and being social.

It is not the same if pigs are kept in an intensive holding. Right after 3 to 4 weeks piglets are separated from their mother and go to the so called pre-mast. In this period and later in the end-mast they are in groups. Just being one month old, the little pigs have to care for themselves. Before that the mother was next to them, but had no opportunity to help them, to sniff, to lick or to snuggle them.

But what about the further life in the mast?

Full slatted floor:

Full slatted floors are not suitable for the needs of pigs – they only make the working for the staff easier.

Full slatted floors are extreme practically – at the same time they act as a dunging. Excrementals and urines shall flow through the slatted floors or kicked though it. Directly under the floors the excrementals are collected in a canal. That is en extreme burden for the fine nose of the pigs. The nose of pigs is as sensible as the nose of dogs, nobody in Austria would treat his dog like this. But pigs are an exception.

A further burden on those full slatted floors is the development of dangerous gases (ammonia gas). The whole time pigs have to breathe these gases. They often get an inflammation of their air ways. 85,5% of mast pigs in Austria live on full slatted floors!

Material for occupation

Male piglets are castrated without anaesthesia in their first days of life.

Normally there should be laws to give materials for occupation, so that the intelligent pigs get something to play (especially important for piglets). But many factories do not offer those materials. As human children like to play, also little pigs like to play. But with what, when there are only naked slatted floors? The consequence is, that farrows often occupy with the tails, ears or the flanks of their fellow sufferers. Not less they bite in the body parts, it can degenerate to cannibalism.

To avoid that, the tails are often cut in the first days of piglet-life. Without anaesthesia, pain killer or aftercare this painful procedure is done by the farmer. Although this is not allowed as a preventive method, it is a routine method in Austria. But pigs also bite in short tails, because they are bored.

Nowadays some factories offer materials for occupation, mostly iron chains or wooden stacks. But pigs are very intelligent, soon they will being bored because the toys are not changeable. The best material would be organic material, e.g. straw. Pigs can dig into the straw, build a nest, eat and nosh it. But straw is not compatible with the full slatted floors, they will get choked, so most factories do not use straw. Economic efficiency is more important than animal welfare.

98,7% of mast pigs are living without straw litter!
80,3% of all pigs do not have any material for occupation!

Space

A further problem in the mast is the little space. The lawful space is 0,7m² for a pig of 110kg, that is laughable: if a pig of 110kg lies down and stretches its legs, it needs 1m². Pigs in freedom use three spaces: a sleeping berth, a place for excrementals and space where they can busy with foraging and ingestion. Pigs in intensive holding do not have this. They have only little space where they must sleep, eat and go to toilet!

Medicine

Animals which are in a mast, get many medicine, otherwise they would not survive the intensive holding. The stench, the building of ammonia gases because of excrementals, that are inhaled the whole time, causes inflammation of air ways. They cough, catch a cold, some pigs even get asthma. Only while getting medicaments the animals are able do live.

All factories give medicine to their pigs! Pigs – also X 15 – have to live under these disastrous conditions, until they reach their slaughter.

Other posts that might be interesting:

• Life of the pig-vision pigs – a retrospect (0)
• Interview with “Menschen für Tierrechte” (People for Animal Rights) (0)
• The ordinary keeping of pigs is not appropriate (0)

Robert Kresse of pig-vision interviewed Marion Selig, veterinarian and deputy chairwoman of the association Menschen für Tierrechte (MfT) about pig breeding.

Robert Kresse: MfT is working on a class action lawsuit in Germany. What exactly is this and how could it help pigs in detail?

Marion Selig: In the constitutional state of Germany exists a serious tilt concerning law in terms of animal welfare: livestock owners, as there are e.g. pig farmers, can sue through all instances against requirements of animal welfare, which are assumed as to strong. So, they can defend themselves against the assumed violation of their rights via a juridical path; this can happen if, for example, the official veterinarian determines to offer more space to pigs. Animal rights activists on the other side have no opportunity to prosecute more animal welfare by court. Assuming, my opinion was, that conditions in pig breeding are absolutely agonizing and violate the law of animal welfare – which say, that animals have to be kept and supplied species-appropriate –; neither myself as a private individual nor as deputy chairwoman of my association could take legal action against this. The only possibility would be to report an offence to the prosecution. We can tell from experience that such complaints almost always are dismissed. Verbal hearings with external experts and so on practically never take place.

The class action lawsuit for animal rights would remove this situation. Because it would allow accredited organisations of animal welfare to take legal action – substitutional and quasi as a lawyer for animals – which formally have now legal position. The class action lawsuit for animal rights would not create a new law on animal welfare, but is absolutely necessary to enforce already existing rules and regulations effectively. With the class action lawsuit for animal welfare, organisations for animal welfare could juridically control the current housing of pigs. Even a lawsuit against the castration of male piglets without anaesthesia would be possible.

By the way: the only German state, which established the class action lawsuit for animal welfare so far was Bremen in October 2007. Class action is not a novelty: in conservation law, the law concerning handicapped people and the competition law the class action law suit is already accepted and proved of value.

Robert Kresse: What in general criticises MfT on pig breeding?

Marion Selig: Pigs are intelligent and social animals. Mothers build a nest before they give birth. They suckle their children for three months. Within the group there is a network of social relationships, which are especially close to related animals. Pigs like to look for seeds, fruits and grasses in the ground. They like to wallow themselves and are curiously exploring their environment. All these things they cannot do at all in the nowadays common way of pig breeding. Today piglets get cut off their ring tail and their eye teeth. Male piglets are castrated – currently this is permitted in the first days of theirs lives even without anaesthesia. „Rearing pigs“ („fatteners“) are kept on a slatted floor – that means tightness, stench and boredom each and every day. Female animals for breeding are reduced to machines of parturition, who can live together with the other pigs only for a part of their pregnancy. Shortly before, while they give birth and the weeks afterwards the mothers have to stay in small boxes – almost completely motionless.

Robert Kresse: What is the most crucial point for MfT criticising on pig breeding?

Marion Selig: In the end, conventional pig breeding altogether is absolutely tormenting and not acceptable. Mulitating of animals, the permanent keeping in the stable on a slatted floor, often without litter and the poundage of the mothers on small boxes are a total non species-appropriate; boredom, injuries and conduct disorders – which means considerable suffering – are preprogrammated.

Robert Kresse: How does the optimal type of housing for pigs look like according to MfT?

Marion Selig: As animal rights activists we in principal question the keeping (in imprisonment) of animals. Apart from the animal’s rights to life and physical integrity, it’s not necessary to keep them for food-production and to kill them. On the contrary, the consumption of animal products causes a lot of problems, concerning human health as well as the climate change. The bigger part of greenhouse gases results from breeding, killing and eating animals. Besides, the energy of plants is destroyed and also a lot of energy from elsewhere is wasted.

But as long as human beings will keep animals, we account it as necessary to arrange the conditions of the keeping of animal as acceptable as possible. As it concerns pigs, this would mean: a life in family connection, enough space, time to spend outside, litter in the stable, prohibition of small boxes, prohibition of castration without anaesthesia and of the amputation of tails and the cutting-off of eye teeth.

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How does that look like for you?

Behind bars.

X15 and his brothers and sisters permanently live on a slatted floor.

Our camera seems to pique curiosity....

More up-to-date pictures you can find on our latest flickr-album.

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DISCLAIMER:
PIG-VISION is a controversial project. We want to show consumers the dimension of animal-misusage while using the example of two pigs. Different opinions from different people are expressed on our homepage. We are not consistent with these opinions and their political background. The consumer shall get an own picture of the situation.
THE PIG-VISION TEAM

In the beginning of the campaign we have sent an interview-request to all speakers of animal protection of Austrian parliament. Until now we only got answer from Christiane Brunner, speaker of animal protection of the Greens (apart from the FPÖ).

Other posts that might be interesting:

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He explains in the interview, what scientists think about the ordinary commercial holding of pigs. Themes are fully slatted floors, holding of sows in farrowing crates and further aspects dealing with breeding and mast of pigs.

In a second video professor Baumgartner talks detailed about the aches that farrows have while being castrated without anaesthesia.

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Rearing of pigs means feeding as the main task for the pigs. The aim is to make the pigs gain between 600 and 800 grams per day. Only by this way a final weight between 100 and 120 kg can be achieved within something more than four months of rearing.

Rearing of pigs mostly also means living on a slatted floor.

Rearing of pigs in Austria.

More pictures on Flickr.

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The four to five months, which it takes to fatten an average pig in Austria, mean to gain weight from something over 30 kg to about 110 kg.

Other posts that might be interesting:

• Life of the pig-vision pigs – a retrospect (0)
• Slaughtering of X15 (0)
• X15 and his brothers and sisters shortly before slaughtering (0)

Other posts that might be interesting:

• Life of the pig-vision pigs – a retrospect (0)
• X15 and his brothers and sisters shortly before slaughtering (0)
• The rearing in the view of animal protection (0)