![]() Pork industry experts estimate that approximately 1 million pigs arrive for slaughter either crippled or already dead. The survivors are often too sick to stand when they are forced onto the backs of trucks (often by being beaten and shocked with electric prods) and shipped to slaughterhouses through all weather extremes without food or water. Yet many animals die before they are fully grown (Smithfield sees it as just a cost of doing business). Smithfield also feeds animals large amounts of antibiotics to keep them alive in the filthy factory-farm conditions. Smithfield manipulates pigs’ genetics to make them grow more flesh than they naturally would, which causes many pigs to suffer painful joint problems. All these practices should be illegal, but farmed animals are specifically exempt from the Animal Welfare Act, so almost anything goes at a Smithfield pig factory. They have their teeth clipped in half, their tails cut off, and their ears mutilated, and the males have their testicles ripped out-all without any painkillers. Newborn piglets are taken from their mothers after just a few weeks. The way that Smithfield treats pigs, from birth to slaughter, could result in felony cruelty-to-animals charges if pigs were covered by the same laws that are designed to protect dogs and cats from abuse.Īt Smithfield, female pigs endure constant cycles of forced pregnancy. Smithfield Foods, based in Smithfield, Virginia, kills almost 30 million pigs every year-more than any other company in the world.
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