Following the exposure of Colin Kay’s Levin pig farm by Mike King, Open Rescue and SAFE in 2009, members of Animal Freedom Aotearoa have visited five pig farms to further document and prove that the horrific conditions seen at Colin’s farm are not isolated, but rather that they are legal, and are the same throughout most of the industry.

We visited farms in Levin, Hunterville, Pokeno, Kumeu and South Auckland and sadly the abhorrent conditions and suffering that we documented are legal and common practice for this industry. The way pigs in this country live is extremely cruel, and the cruelty is allowed by law.

Mothers were confined to small farrowing crates where they could not care for their young.  Pregnant sows were confined, unable to turn around or display any natural behaviours such as rooting and foraging, and many young piglets had growths and were covered in their own excrement, or dead, cannibalised.

Government body NAWAC (National Animal Welfare Advisory Committee) have recently released a new draft Code of Welfare for Pig Farming. Despite public outcry over popular pig farming practices, the new code will continue to condemn pigs to a life of suffering, until a miserable death at the slaughterhouse.

NAWAC have stated in the code that they aim to phase out the use of sow stalls, with a complete ban by the end of 2017. They also intend to reduce, but not eliminate, the time sows spend in a farrowing crate. Sow stalls have been banned in the United Kingdom and Sweden and are being phased out in Finland, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Denmark. Farms where stalls are not used tend to house pigs in group or individual pens. This may all sound like a very positive step, however we believe that the pen system is also extremely cruel and unethical.

The farm that we visited in Pokeno did not routinely use sow stalls or farrowing crates and instead housed the mothers and their young in small pens. These conditions were still a far cry from how pigs would live in the wild; every inch of their pen was covered in excrement, they had no source of mental stimulation and no room to exercise.

Sweden is often regarded as having some of the best animal welfare standards in the world. As mentioned above sow stalls are banned in Sweden; sows there are commonly housed in group pens. A recent investigation by Swedish animal rights group, Djurrättsalliansen (Animal Rights Alliance) found that the majority of the pigs were living in very filthy conditions, over 80 percent of them had wounds or other injuries (including cannibalism) and sows still exhibited signs of stereotypical (repetitive) behaviour. This is the future for pigs on New Zealand farms.

Regardless of how good a pigs life could be made through changes to welfare legislation pig farming will always mean mass murder. All pigs, no matter how free range they may have lived still all end up at the slaughterhouse where they are brutally murdered to satisfy people's desire for the taste of their flesh. At the slaughterhouse the pigs are herded up ramps where they are shot with a captive bolt pistol and are then hung up by one foot. Their throats are then slit and their blood is drained. Their young bodies are then cut up, plastic wrapped and sent to your local supermarket.

The NZ Government have shown time and time again that it will not help pigs on New Zealand farms; these animals need you to be their voice to give them the freedom they deserve. Keep pork off your fork and go vegan!

For a link to the Swedish pig farm investigation visit http://ettlivsomgris.se/english.