Adore: a new breed
Issue 01 - December - February 2006

Every issue, our 'Free Range' pages are dedicated to animal welfare. In our premiere edition we've invited Ondine Sherman, animal campaigner and co-founder and director of Voiceless to share some of her experience with us. Voiceless is a new and growing organisation dedicated to protecting animals from suffering. Through Voiceless, Ondine has become a voice for the Voiceless.

Take your standard bacon and egg breakfast.

The free range egg market is growing because consumers are now aware of the inhuman conditions imposed on battery chickens and are insisting on change.

But these consumers would be campaigning for similar justice for pigs, if they knew the horrific conditions most Australian pigs are forced to endure to provide them the other half of their great Aussie breakfast.

In factory farms, the majority of Australia's 300,000 breeding sows are imprisoned in sow stalls so small they can't take a step forward or back. These sows produce the piglets destined to become bacon, ham and pork products. Most sows are confined in sow stalls during part of their 16-week pregnancies, and one third of them for their entire pregnancies.

Just prior to giving birth, sows are moved to a 'nursery'. However, this is not a nursery like anything we know. This 'farrowing crate' is yet smaller still, and it's here the heavily pregnant sow is restrained within metal bars to further limit her movement.

The sow is denied her basic mothering instinct to make a birthing nest out of straw or natural materials, so she has no choice but to deliver her piglets on a hard floor. This denial has a measurable negative physical response. Studies have shown female pigs confined in farrowing crates have higher levels of stress hormones compared to sows that have enough space for nest building activities.

After birth, piglets must suckle through metal bars from a concrete floor. This affects both mother and piglet. Overseas scientists have found that young piglets separated from their mother give frequent and distinctive squeals to her, and in some cases appear to 'give up on life'.

After three or four weeks, mother and piglets are separated and the sow is impregnated again.

This cycle of suffering and deprivation eventually ends, when, for the first time in the sow's life she'll see daylight and have fresh air to breathe. What this sow doesn't know as she is loaded on a truck, so lame, ill or 'unproductive' she is no longer capable of creating profit, that this is also the last day of her life.

Photo courtesy of Pasture Perfect Produce, Inverell

A generation from now, we believe our children will condemn us for allowing these farming practices to exist. And yet there are alternatives; alternatives which are conducive to a pig in its natural environment.

Despite their reputation as dirty animals, pigs are clean, intelligent, and highly sociable. They only roll in mud because they can't sweat like people do; the mud keeps them cool. In fact, pigs are excellent swimmers and actually prefer water to mud if it's available. Pigs like their sleeping area to be clean, and if given the choice, designate a spot as far from this area as possible for eliminated waste. Even piglets only a few hours old will leave the nest to relieve themselves.

Bristol University scientists have discovered that pigs make their decisions in order to get what they want and understand what's going on in other pigs' minds. This type of thinking was first considered to be unique to apes and humans. And like puppies, piglets learn to recognise their names early and respond when called.

Few species are more social than pigs. They form close bonds within their social group, yet will protect a piglet outside of their group from harm, even leaving their own piglets to do so. Physical contact is important. Pigs seek out and enjoy close contact, and will lie together when resting.

When free to roam, pigs spend much of their day enthusiastically smelling, nibbling and manipulating objects with their snouts, and turning over the soil for titbits. Although different groups of sows and their piglets may share a common territory, when foraging for food, they maintain their distance.

Pigs are vocal and communicate constantly with one another. More than 20 different sounds have been identified, and like many animals, pigs also have a vocal courting ritual. In The Social Behaviour of Pigs, H W Gonyou, found that the sow uses a special 'lactation grunt' to call her piglets to suckle. Piglets themselves communicate with each other and their mother by grunts and squeals, and newborn piglets learn to run to their mother's grunts. Canadian scientists found that farmed piglets separated from their mother, squeal to communicate, and the mother responds with a long grunt. On hearing their mother's recall, the piglets intensify their own calls.

When a free ranging sow is ready to give birth, she selects a clean, dry area apart from the group. Gonyou found the sow will often walk several kilometres to find a good nest site, which can take up to 10 hours to build. She usually hollows a depression in the ground and lines it with grass, straw, or other materials. The sow may even completely cover herself with the nesting material before giving birth. For two weeks, she'll stay with her piglets in the nest, but within two to three days the piglets will follow her on foraging trips. The piglets are gradually integrated in the group and weaned at around 17 weeks.

At just two weeks, piglets will start to play. At first, it's just play fights and later in the form of chasing, frolicking, exploring and manipulating objects. Play is considered a vital part of development for a range of cognitive and physical adaptations and skills.

The Alternatives

Internationally, there have been some major wins for animals and animal groups in terms of legal reforms. Sow stalls and other intensive farming practices are banned in England, Florida and Sweden and are being phased out in the European Union and New Zealand.

The family pen system is one alternative. Pioneered at the University of Bern in Switzerland, it allows pigs to exist in conditions similar to their natural social organisation, with additional nest areas (with straw bedding), communal areas and an outside yard (including space for foraging).

According to overseas studies, sows housed in the family pen system produce 21 piglets a year, which is comparable to many intensive pig farms.

Photo courtesy of Pasture Perfect Produce, Inverell

Outdoor pig production has expanded greatly in recent years in Australia. The capital costs of this form of production are lower and at least four separate overseas studies indicate that farms do not lose productivity and that the pigs are calmer and healthier. 

How to Help

Encourage supermarkets, cafes and restaurants to promote humane farming and provide free-range pork and ham or 'mock meat' vegetarian options.

Choose to buy only humanely-farmed animal products. This in turn supports cruelty-free products and supports the growth and prosperity of humane businesses, whilst allowing humanely produced goods to become more affordable and mainstream.

For further information on pig protection and how you can help, visit Animals Australia's 'Save Babe' campaign www.savebabe.com or www.voiceless.org.au.

Voiceless is a non-profit organisation established in May 2004. It works to promote respect and compassion for animals, increase awareness of the conditions in which they live, and take action to protect animals from suffering.

Voiceless aims to educate Australians about animal welfare, work to modify or create legislation to protect animals and award grants to animal organisations that share its vision.

Nobel Prize winner for literature JM Coetzee is the patron of Voiceless, and internationally acclaimed actor Hugo Weaving is an ambassador.

Voiceless supports, via its Grants Program, Animals Australia to help end the factory farming of pigs and educate consumers; Humane Society International for the development of a 'humane choice' food label; and Compassion in World Farming to help educate school children about farming methods and their effects on the welfare of farm animals.

'Voiceless is a small part of what has become a large and I would hope irreversible movement among human beings to make this planet a less harsh and deadly place for all those to whom it is the one and only home.'

J.M. Coetzee - Nobel Prize for Literature Winner 2003 & Voiceless Patron

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