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why vegan- for the animals
pigs
Today’s domestic and wild pigs are descendants of wild boars native to forested parts of Europe, Asia, and North Africa. Contrary to popular belief, pigs do not overeat, and enjoy clean water and bedding. Pigs raised for meat have been selectively bred to be very large in order to maximize meat production. The natural diet of wild pigs consists of 90% plant material—roots, bulbs and tubers (unearthed by rooting with their long snouts) and fruit and berries, with animal matter constituting the remaining 10%.
Pigs are extremely intelligent- even more so than dogs. A pig's bristles give little protection against the cold. They do not have sweat glands, despite the saying "sweat like a pig" so they easily overheat. In hot weather, wild pigs spend a lot of time wallowing in ponds, springs, streams, or mud to cool off.
Pigs prefer to live in small social groups of 6 to 30 animals. Piglets are born inside a specially constructed nest, a mound-like structure built by the sow from nearby vegetation. Pigs, both wild and farmed, have an extremely strong, natural desire to root. Many of these instinctual needs, such as building nests in preparation for birth and rooting in the earth, are thwarted when pigs are raised for food.
On farms, over 20 percent of the prematurely weaned piglets die of stress and disease. They are the lucky ones. Those who survive are tagged and castrated without anesthesia, then placed in stacked wire cages euphemistically called 'nurseries.' Instead of mother's milk, they are fed a synthetic formula. When the pigs are able to eat solid food, they are transferred to large, crowded pens. Here they are fed for six months until slaughter.
Breeding sows suffer a similar fate. They are kept constantly impregnated in tiny metal “gestation crates,” which allow no room for the sows to walk or turn around. When they are ready to give birth, they are placed in ”farrowing crates,” nearly as cramped as gestation crates, where they give birth to and nurse their litter of 10-12 piglets. The natural nursing period of 12 weeks is cut to 2-4 weeks, so that the sows can be impregnated again. After 3-4 years, the exhausted breeding sows are sold for slaughter.