Intensive pig farming
In addition, the case has also been made that crates make it easier for hog farmers to monitor individual sow health and administer vaccines as needed.
[3] Although combined use of an anesthetic and analgesic appears to be the most effective method for controlling pain associated with surgical castration, regulatory requirements and cost remain obstacles to practical application.
Use of pharmaceuticals can burden producers with direct and indirect costs; the latter are associated with time delays and a potential need for additional veterinary assistance.
[4] The environmental impacts of pig farming include problems posed to drinking water and algal bloom events.
The pigs begin life in a farrowing or gestation crate, a small pen with a central cage, designed to allow the piglets to feed from their mother, the sow, while preventing her from moving around, crushing her children, and reducing aggression.
[18] Of the piglets born alive, 10% to 18% will not make it to weaning age, succumbing to disease, starvation, dehydration, or being accidentally crushed by their trapped mothers.
[19][20] This death toll includes the runts, unusually small piglets who are considered economically unviable and killed by staff, typically by blunt trauma to the head.
[38] As of 2016, The European Union legislation has required that pigs be given environmental enrichment, specifically they must have permanent access to a sufficient quantity of material to enable proper investigation and manipulation activities.
[40] As of 2023, ten states have banned the use of gestation crates: Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Ohio, Oregon, and Rhode Island.
Those that support outdoor systems usually do so on the grounds that they are more animal friendly and allow pigs to experience natural activities (e.g., wallowing in mud, relating to young, rooting soil).
Outdoor systems are usually less economically productive due to increased space requirements and higher morbidity, (though, when dealing with the killing of piglets and other groups of swine, the methods are the same.)
French and Dutch studies show that even in the higher welfare group housing systems – ones giving more space and straw – a kg of pigmeat costs less than 2 pence more to produce than in gestation crates.
Hogs (males) are kept confined in caged crates of the same size for the duration of their lives in order to have their sperm repeatedly extracted by workers.
In an intensive system, the sow will be placed in a crate prior to insemination and will stay there for at least the start of her pregnancy, depending on each country's laws and local regulations.
Authoritative industry data indicate that moving from sow stalls to group housing added 2 pence to the cost of producing 1 kg.
In many pork-producing countries (e.g., United States, Canada, Australia, Denmark) the use of intensive piggeries has led to market rationalization and concentration.
The New York Times reported that keeping pigs and other animals in "unnaturally overcrowded" environments poses considerable health risks for workers, neighbors, and consumers.
Runoff can leach through permeable soils to vulnerable aquifers that tap ground water sources for human consumption.
Improper disposal of animal carcasses and abandoned livestock facilities can also contribute to water quality problems in surrounding areas of CAFOs.
The 2009 harmful algal bloom event off the coast of Brittany, France was attributed to runoff from an intensive pig farm.
[6] As of 2010, North Carolina housed approximately ten million hogs, most of which are located in the eastern half of the state in industrialized concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs).
[59] The environmental justice problems in North Carolina's agroindustrialization of swine production seem to stem from the history of the coastal region's economy, which has relied heavily on black and low-income populations to supply the necessary agricultural labor.
[60] This swine production and pollution that accompanies factory hogging is concentrated in the parts of North Carolina that have the highest disease rates, the least access to medical care, and the greatest need for positive education and economic development.
[62] The toxins emitted by the swine CAFOs can produce a variety of symptoms and illnesses ranging from respiratory disorders, headaches, and shortness of breath to hydrogen sulfide poisoning, bronchitis, and asthma.
The potential for spray field runoff or lagoon leakage puts nearby residents in danger of contaminated drinking water, which can lead to diseases like samonellosis, giardiasis, Chlamydia, meningitis, cryptosporidiosis, worms, and influenza.
[63] Slaughterhouses and veterinarians are obliged to report pigs with injuries to the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Fisheries, which forwards cases to the police.
[64] When there are visible injuries, it represents not only a problem in animal welfare but also the farmers economy because parts or occasionally the entire carcass has to be discarded.
[64] From 2006 to 2009 the number of pigs with injuries caused by hard objects, such as planks or chains received by slaughterhouses rose significantly.
It was possibly related to a system introduced in 2006, which rewards "the rushed loading of animals onto vehicles", as well as a sharp increase in uneducated Eastern European farm workers unaware of Danish laws.
[64][65] Gestation crates were sometimes used on some Danish farms to restrict the movement of sows during pregnancy, as documented by British celebrity chef Jamie Oliver in a television programme for the UK's Channel 4 in 2009.
