Visit the official website of the representative body of the Australian pig industry – Australian Pork Limited – and you will not find a single photograph showing the conditions and confinement that hundreds of thousands of breeding pigs endure in Australia.

Even in their new welfare section where the industry attempt to justify their practices – the most obvious place to have photographs – they are a glaring omission.

Instead, on clicking on the information for consumers you find music, smiling human faces and vivid colours. All portraying the impression of good health and happiness.

Click on ‘Our farmers’ and you find images of healthy crops and piglets snuggling in hay. Not a single photograph representative of the real lives lived by pigs in factory farms throughout the country.

Animals Australia created SaveBabe.com as we knew that purchasers of pork products were being led to believe that they were supporting a healthy, environmentally and welfare friendly industry.

Animals Australia believes that we, as individuals, have the right to support and purchase whatever we choose, but we also believe that those choices should be informed ones. Not made on the basis of secrets and lies ….

Secrets revealed...

In over 2,000 factory farms throughout Australia the worth of a female pig is determined by how many piglets she can produce each litter. She is allowed to ‘live’ for as long as her body can physically endure the demands of being kept continually pregnant and confined, standing with minimal movement on a hard floor.Females pigs in factory farms are treated as
breeding machines. They endure a cycle of
suffering and deprivation.

Their behavioural, mental and emotional needs are irrelevant. Exercise is not allowed.
Space means money. They exist to create profit.

The Maternity Suite…

In Australia, the majority of the 300,000 female breeding pigs (sows) are kept inside sheds continually pregnant and confined.

It is these animals that produce the piglets destined to become bacon, ham and pork products. Most sows are confined for at least some of their 16 week pregnancy in tiny metal individual stalls, (and one third for the entire pregnancy!) so small they are unable to turn around. At best they can take a small step forward.

They have no bedding. They are forced to stand or lie on hard floors. These ‘sow stalls’ as the industry calls them have been banned in Britain for welfare reasons and are being phased out in the European Union.

The Nursery..

Just prior to giving birth, they are moved to a ‘nursery’ which would outrage every Australian mother. Pending mothers are confined in an even smaller area where their body is encircled by metal bars to even further limit their movement.

Mother pigs are provided with no bedding or straw to make a birthing ‘nest’, so she has no choice but to give birth to her piglets on a hard floor. Nurturing and interacting with her young is impossible as a cruel metal frame imprisons her.

Her young are removed after 3 or 4 weeks, she is impregnated again, and the cycle of suffering and deprivation continues.

A day eventually comes when for the first time in her life she experiences sun on her back and fresh air to breathe. What she doesn’t know as she is loaded on that truck, so lame, ill or ‘unproductive’ that she is no longer capable of creating profit, is that it is also to be the last day of her life…

Why are these pictures and information not on the Australian Pork Industry promotional website and in their public advertising campaigns?

Now you know what they don’t want you to know – and why they have resorted to butterflies, flowers and happy smiles. They know that their profits rest on keeping you ignorant.

Every one of us who cares about the plight of these animals has the power to end this barbaric method of ‘farming’ animals

How? This industry defends its practices on needing to meet the demand for their products from consumers.

The road to create change is clear. Next time you visit yoursupermarket please think deeply on your purchases.

Any pork products which have not been labelled free range or organic have been produced in an intensive facility.

Within your choices rests the power to make this world a kinder and more compassionate world – for them – and for us.

Further Information:

Alternatives to Intensive Systems

An industry defends itself..

Intensive pig farming facts

The Pain of Pork.PDF

Inside Australia's Intensive Piggeries - The Photos