Media Release

Embargoed until 00.01 Wed 25/6/3 ACTIVISTS PROTEST AT APPALLING CONDITIONS FILMED ON LOCAL PIG FARMS A new undercover video released by vegetarian campaign group Viva! shows shocking conditions on three Norfolk pig farms. The footage, featuring diseased, dead and filthy animals kept in squalid conditions, was all filmed this year and exposes the suffering of breeding sows kept in farrowing crates - metal cages to which they are confined before and after giving birth to their piglets. Photo Opportunity Local campaigners will be protesting outside Hilltop Farm, Church St, Horsford nr Norwich at 11.00 on Wed 25th June. Contact: Alistair Currie (Viva!) 0117 944 1000 Giles Robins (local) 07833 770592 The video was compiled from undercover filming on pig farms across the UK over the last year. Three farms were filmed in Norfolk, AR Brooks (Hilltop Farm) of Horsford, nr Norwich, Post Office Farm, Suffield, nr Cromer and Kettle Brig Farm at Aylsham. All were filmed in February of this year. In the case of AR Brooks, Viva! was so disturbed by the footage sent by our investigator that we immediately lodged complaints with the State Veterinary Service, about the condition of a pig with an ulcerated prolapse, and Norfolk Trading Standards, about unburied carcasses. No action was taken by either authority. The 12 minute video is designed to highlight the welfare problems caused by the farrowing crate nationwide: other footage shows more dead and diseased animals, squalid and dilapidated conditions, pigs showing signs of chronic mental distress, decomposing piglets, lame sows and poor conditions for other pigs. Viva! campaigner, Alistair Currie, says: "Even hardened animal rights campaigners such as myself and our undercover cameraman were shocked by the footage we obtained in Norfolk: it is the worst we have seen in many years. The fact that the State Veterinary Service and Norfolk Trading Standards took no action speaks volumes about the appalling standards which are considered acceptable on British factory farms. But without films like the kind we have undertaken, no one who had never set foot on a pig farm would know the truth. Breeding sows not only have their incredibly powerful maternal instincts frustrated by the use of the barbaric farrowing crate, they suffer imprisonment, physical trauma and horrifying degradation - all to shave a few pennies off the price of meat. We urge consumers to do what the authorities and politicians won't: end factory farming by boycotting its products and turning vegetarian." Local campaigner Giles Robins said: "I was horrified by this footage - and deeply saddened that the worst of it was filmed in Norfolk. It seems hard to believe that this kind of animal suffering is still tolerated in the 21st century. It's vital that people know that the price of meat is this kind of animal suffering." Notes for Editors All farms were entered without causing damage. Biosecurity precautions were observed by our investigators. The farrowing crate is used for about 80 per cent of the UK's approximately 500,000 breeding sows. They are confined to the crate from seven days before the birth of their piglets until the piglets are weaned 21 to 28 days later. The farrowing crate is similar to the sow stall - in which sows were confined and tethered for the duration of their pregnancies - which was banned in the UK in 1999 and has now been banned in Europe.