Video Shows Pigs Mutilated, Beaten, Duct-Taped

A disturbing new undercover investigation inside two pig farms in Goodwell, Oklahoma, one owned by Seaboard Foods, shows injured piglets with their legs duct-taped to their bodies as well as pigs suffering from abscesses, torn body parts, and bacterial infections without being given veterinary care.

Workers are seen chopping off pigs’ tails and testicles with no painkillers and hitting pigs in the genitals in order to force them to move from one gestation crate to another. Many of the gestation crates—small metal enclosures in which sows spend most of their lives while they are impregnated again and again—were full of feces and urine. The video shows sows desperately chewing the metal bars of their cages and struggling to stand up. Some are bleeding, and some lie dead.

Seaboard is the country’s third-largest pork producer and a supplier to Wal-Mart. Prestage is the fifth-largest producer. Both were investigated.

Did Seaboard know that there was abuse on its farms? Well, 10 years ago, in 2001, a PETA investigation at a Seaboard facility outside Guymon, Oklahoma, led one of its managers to plead guilty to three counts of felony cruelty to animals. Video footage taken by our undercover investigator showed that employees beat pigs with metal gate rods and slammed pigs head-first into the floor in a crude attempt to kill them. Sick and injured pigs were left to die without access to food, water, or veterinary care. Different time, different people, same company, same sort of abuse.

Not an Isolated Incident

Abuse of animals is par for the course on pig farms and all other factory farms. Pigs have the same capacity for suffering as dogs and cats do yet are abused in ways that would be illegal if these animals were the victims.

How You Can Help

The only way to protect animals from this abuse is to stop eating them.