Squalid pig farm demonstrates government’s failure to protect Britain’s farmed animals
Shocking footage from British pig farm sparks outrage from animal welfare organisation
As featured in The Daily Mirror: www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/pig-farm-horror-rotting-piglets-10682183
Animal welfare organisation, Viva!, questions the efficiency of the government’s Animal & Plant Health Agency (APHA), condemning their lack of investigations and prosecutions in British farming.
Viva! have submitted countless reports of unnecessary suffering and cruelty to APHA on a range of British farms, each one authenticated with dated images and a written summary of the findings. Despite providing indisputable evidence of animal welfare issues, APHA rarely respond to Viva!’s reports. At best, they acknowledge receipt of the information but never anything more than that. APHA claim that they cannot comment on ongoing prosecutions.
Using the Freedom of Information Act (FOI) Viva! requested information from APHA regarding two farms they had reported. The APHA responded with a letter stating; ‘APHA believe that withholding the information outweighs that of the public’s interest in the right to know.’ In the same letter APHA refers to farmers in question as its ‘customers’ and raises concerns that the provision of information regarding the report could result in ‘financial loss to the establishment’. Their response clearly demonstrates the disturbing lack of interest towards the welfare of Britain’s farmed animals and dirty truth behind our farming industry.
Viva!’s most recent footage (obtained by Viva! Campaigns and taken on 1st and 2nd June) exposes a large pig farm based in Warwickshire, Hogwood Pig Unit, revealing some of the worst conditions they’ve seen. The unit houses over 15,000 pigs [1] and is a prime example of the how government and industry are failing to effectively protect the welfare of factory farmed animals in Britain.
Hogwood hides a catalogue of pain and suffering. The undercover footage shows cruel farrowing crates, a lack of environmental enrichment, overcrowding, tail mutilations as well as dead and extremely sick pigs.
Sick pigs were found dumped in gangways, surrounded by dead pigs, with no access to food or water. Others were found dying in a filthy shed festooned in cobwebs. Farm Animal Welfare Council (FAWC) guidelines state dead animals should be removed from the living and diseased animals should be kept in isolation [2].
One of the most disturbing scenes is of a group of adults eating the corpse of another pig. Cannibalism is not natural behaviour for pigs and is caused by this bleak environment [3]. In the same pen, tucked away in a corner are two pig skulls, a jaw and a leg. Presumably they are from pigs that have died and their carcasses have been left there to rot.
Basic sanitation is nowhere to be found at Hogwood. Water troughs are soiled and everywhere pigs are covered in their own excreta. Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) specifically advise pigs’ water troughs should be cleaned regularly [4] and faecal matter should be removed in a timely manner [5].
Outside one of the many sheds housing these animals is a large wheelbarrow filled with the bodies of over 30 dead pigs, each in varying states of decay, demonstrating the high mortality rate at this farm; as well as complete disregard for hygiene.
Viva!’s recent report, Pig Farming: The Inside Story, details countless examples of how this highly unnatural environment can lead to animals performing abnormal and stereotypic behaviours such as bar and tail biting, which can indicate prolonged stress, anxiety and even madness.
Unfortunately, these conditions echo the lives of most pigs in Britain (and elsewhere), who endure short and brutal lives on farms where their welfare is of far lower importance than production.
The conditions at Hogwood have been reported to APHA, however Viva! have received no confirmation that any action has been taken to address these issues.
Founder & Director of Viva!, Juliet Gellatley, who investigated the conditions at the farm herself described the scenes she witnessed:
“Pigs were so tightly crammed into a disgustingly dirty industrial unit that it was hard to walk through them. Many were covered in lacerations and all were smeared in filth. In another shed, pigs were kept in groups in bare concrete cells with slatted wooden gangways. There was the cynical addition of a chain with plastic sheathing for biting hung limply, its novelty value long gone. This is to meet the government’s pathetic recommendations on ‘environmental enrichment’! No straw, no bedding, just harsh, soiled floors, concrete walls and a life filled with utter boredom, frustration and no outlet for those active, intelligent, inquisitive minds. This, it is claimed, are the best animal welfare conditions in the world.
“I witnessed a mother giving birth on to an unforgiving, concrete floor. She was trapped inside a metal crate. This is a legal device used across Britain’s factory farms. I believe anyone with a heart seeing the state of the animals in today’s modern farms would want factory farming to end. Hogwood Farm typifies large scale institutionalised cruelty, sanctioned by government and it must end.”
In light of the shocking investigation at Hogwood, Viva! asks the public to take action against these atrocities and sign their petition, which demands that APHA closes down the farm and begins carrying out its own investigations on animal cruelty reports brought to its attention.
The abhorrent findings of Viva! at Hogwood, the ignoring of reported cruelty and neglect and the low number of prosecutions indicate that the protection of animals on factory farms is evaporating, and yet the public is still being spun the line that we have the ‘best animal welfare in the world’. The sweeping under the carpet of animal cruelty and abuse can never be justified, and it must end.
ENDS information:
Notes to editor:
Footage has been reported to local Animal Health Office. Strict biosecurity was observed at all times and access was through open doors.
Over several years APHA has ignored widespread and serious animal welfare issues on factory farms reported to them. They are more concerned with protecting farmers’ profit than investigating our reports of serious animal welfare breaches.
In 2016, there were only 31 animal welfare convictions in Britain and, as in 2015, these were mainly for ‘visible animals’. In other words, sheep and cattle housed outside. There appears to be no prosecutions for large scale pig or poultry producers [6].
This disturbing lack of prosecutions points to a failure by the UK government to treat the welfare of animals on factory farms with the seriousness it deserves.
References:
- Environment Agency website. 2015. Notice of variation and consolidation with introductory note. [online] Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/fil… [Accessed 2 June 2017]
- Animal & Plant Health website. 2017. Home Page. [online] Available at: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/fallen-stock [Accessed 2 June 2017]
- Viva! 2016 Pig Farming: The Inside Story
- Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs and Animal and Plant Health Agency website. 2017. Disease prevention. [online] Available at:https://www.gov.uk/guidance/disease-prevention-for-livestock-farmers Accessed 2 June 2017
- Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs website. 2003. Code of Recommendations for the Welfare of Livestock PDF. [online] Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/fil… Accessed 2 June 2017
- Animal & Plant Health Agency website. 2017. Return of expenditure incurred and prosecutions taken under the Animal Health Act 1981 and incidences of disease in imported animals for the year 2016 [online] Available at: http://www.cynulliad.cymru/laid%20documents/gen-ld10989/gen-ld10989-w.pdf [Accessed 2 June 2-17]
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Questions and/or Interview opportunities with Viva! should be directed to:
Siobhan Dolan, Marketing and PR Manager
Viva!
8 York Court
Wilder St
Bristol BS2 8QH
Tel: 0117 944 1000
Email: siobhan@viva.org.uk
Twitter @vivacampaigns
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Watch the full video here: https://www.viva.org.uk/faceoff/take-action
