Great News! Powys Pig Farm Proposal Rejected
Great news! Towards the end of 2022, Powys County Council refused plans for an enormous pig farm following a letter from PETA.
If approved, the horrific plans would have seen around 2,000 pigs sent to slaughter each year. They would have been crammed into a dark shed and forced to spend their short, miserable lives in a space measuring just over a square metre – only slightly larger than an average bathtub.
Cruelty Out of View on Pig Farms
The pigs on this farm wouldn’t have seen daylight or breathed fresh air. They would have been denied the opportunity to express any natural behaviour, like foraging and rooting for food, and would have had nothing to stimulate their sharp minds.
The stress and frustration of extreme confinement can drive pigs to engage in aggressive behaviour such as tail-biting, so farmers routinely cut off their tails and clip or grind down their sensitive teeth, often without painkillers.
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The pigs would have reached “finishing weight” at just 20 to 24 weeks old – at which point they would have been packed onto a lorry and sent to the abattoir. At the end of this terrifying journey, pigs are typically stunned with electric tongs or suffocated with carbon dioxide in a gas chamber before their throats are slit and they’re left to bleed out.
Swine Flu and the Spread of Disease
When animals are forced to live in filthy facilities soaked with blood, urine, and other bodily fluids, deadly pathogens can emerge and spread from animals to humans – as was the case with the 2009 swine flu pandemic.
To keep animals alive in dirty, disease-ridden conditions that would otherwise kill them, 75% of the world’s antibiotics are now used non-therapeutically on farms. Experts believe that by 2050, more people will die of antibiotic-resistant diseases than currently die of cancer.
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What’s Next?
As these proposals would not be put forth without demand from the public for animal flesh, the best way to help stop future factory-farm plans is to go vegan.
We’ll continue to speak out against animal farms such as this one. If you want to add your name to our future petitions, subscribe to PETA News to be the first to hear of them.
If you hear about plans for a new factory farm in your area, please alert us by contacting [email protected] as soon as you can.
