I just realized I've never seen a pig. Anybody here work in a pig holocaust camp? How bad is it?

twin_beacon

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121951577#Comment_121951577

by animal welfare, I mean during the life of the animal. The large feed lots where cattle are fed corn (and pumped with growth hormones) are not a European thing. As for slaughter, a bullet in the head is a bullet in the head.

65535

No - in Europe we provide Horse Meat in place of Cow Meat and tell consumers that it's OK

Raising of Animals for slaughter is wrong

Thelonious Monk

These products are ending up on Irish shelves too. I really wish people would stop supporting this disgusting industry.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/pigs-bacon-tesco-asda-aldi-mands-b2520254.html

muddypaws

There are a few free range pork farms in Ireland, Andarl Farm in Mayo is one and they have an online shop. Their meat is obviously dearer than intensively reared pigs but I think worth paying, not just for the ethics of it but also the taste.

Pops_20

I worked in one for a summer as a student. Wouldn't recommend it.

I started with zero expectations other than I knew it was going to be hard work, lifting heavy bags, cleaning etc. The smell is the first thing you notice but you get used to it after a while. Sticks to your clothes and to your body.

What stood out to me the most is that the pigs are reared in light and gradually move into darkness before they are shipped off to be slaughtered. Maybe it was just the place I worked, but by the time the pigs are ready to be sent off they are in a shed that has no light at all, fed gruel all day long and probably don't even know what they are anymore.

They are very intelligent animals as others have said. Curious and a little frightened after they are separated from their mother. Kept in a shed with 10-12 pens holding around 30-40 pigs in each pen as I remember.

While the process as a whole is quite cruel, the people who work there make it worse. The piglets are vaccinated a couple of weeks after they are born. I once saw a worker take the piglet and whack it off the wall to kill it as he deemed it wasn't going to survive anyway.

I didn't eat pork for around 6 months after I worked there. Forgot about it over time but the memories come back to me every now and then.

Beef farming probably isn't that bad. Chicken is probably the same or worse. None of it is good really.

taxAHcruel

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121965094#Comment_121965094

In many parts of Germany they openly sell and eat horse. Nothing wrong with it actually. I have tried it and do go back for more. There are areas where there are butchers who deal exclusively in horse meat. They do not even carry other animals. Selling anything while calling it something else is certainly wrong. So I hope anyone selling horse as cow got whatever justice was on offer. But horse meat in and of itself I certainly have nothing against.

Like others on the thread I do try to source my meat as ethically as possible given the options and the prices. It would be nice if there were more options there of course. But better bred, better treated meat is tastier and more ethical. I do what I can afford. I do have a heavily carnivore diet myself.

Where possible I keep or catch my own meat. Fish and Bunny or whatever (being vague for various reasons, including legal). But also keep animals myself. Usually have a very large group for Christmas each year - three sets of grand parents and siblings galore. So each year me and my little kids get geese and we keep them for slaughter. That and hunting/catching gives them real work to do and lets them learn where meat comes from and so on.

So I am not convinced by the "animals for slaughter" is wrong argument myself in and of itself. It would be nice to do it better and more ethically in general but there is nothing about the core concept of it I have an issue with.

Hippodrome Song Owl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121968076#Comment_121968076

Similar and worse experiences here across multiple piggeries. The tails docked and teeth clipped with pliers at 3 days to reduce injuries when they are chewing each other due to sheer frustration and boredom. The widespread stereotypies of confined sows. Routine total disregard for any suffering by workers including throwing dying animals into a skip with dead carcasses. There is zero compassion or humanity in the vast majority of pig enterprises in Ireland. Our beef and sheep farming may have acceptable standards by world norms, but our pig farming is among the worst.

SuperBowserWorld

Very binary thinking on lots of issues including this one.

Raising animals for slaughter should not facilitate being brutally cruel to animals. People, especially in Ireland, can well afford to be less cruel when generating meat for consumption by paying more and requiring better animal treatment.

Or maybe we just love the brutality of it all, and enjoy having a laugh about torture.