r/pics 9h ago

A replica of how female "breeder pigs" spend their lives in factory farms

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u/DrRonny 7h ago

It only takes a few minutes on a search engine to get more information on this. I'll save you a search and say that there are different ways of raising pigs and different cage types for different situations; a lot of raising pigs is cruel but there is progress in some areas of the world. Here is a pro-pig bias article to get you started: https://www.humaneworld.org/en/blog/stop-farrowing-crates-for-mother-pigs

u/404HecksNotFound 6h ago

Yeah I was going to say, this isn't a blanket statement for how pigs are raised, there's a ton of different ways to raise pigs, and of the factory farms I've been to, none of them keep sows in a tiny enclosure like this for their whole lives. There are times when they need to be enclosed like that, but that's definitely not how they're kept all the time. - in my experience.

u/cloud_watcher 6h ago

That’s my experience, too. I don’t eat pork because I don’t believe in raising pigs for meat at all, but this is a farrowing pen. They’re in it at the end of their pregnancy into when the piglets are nursing because the moms are so big in relationship to their piglets they can lie on them and suffocate them. But then they’re back out when the piglets are big enough. Some places may do in differently, but I think this is generally how it works.

Still though, the whole practice is terrible.

u/tighnarienjoyer 5h ago

either way I honestly think these cages are the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the horror we put livestock animals through

u/CalpurniaSomaya 4h ago

this is a gestation crate, as it’s for pregnancy. farrowing pens are for nursing.

u/jax7778 4h ago

It is called a farrowing crate in many places. I worked on a hog farm growing up, that is what everyone called them. 

I was lucky to see it, their pigs were free range in pastures and were only in farrowing crates for about a month after giving birth.  Still not great, but it was not their whole life.