“Senate frees the pregnant pigs
US - By a vote of 20-9 Thursday, the Oregon Senate endorsed a bill that would make it a Class A misdemeanor to confine a pregnant pig.”

Arguments based on ‘science’ will mean nothing in the end. The momentum is picking up. As more and more people become aware of how pigs are treated on intensive farms the outrage grows. Try to justify factory farming anyway you like but the writing is on the wall.

Rojo – intensive pig farms are incubators for disease. In an attempt to combat this, the pigs are fed a cocktail of antibiotics and other medications. Death rates are high in these concentration camps despite the huge drug bills. It doesn’t matter what species of animal it is, once you try and raise it in unnatural conditions and cram hundreds of them together, disease is inevitable.

BTW, RSPCA are very anti sow stalls and have been from the beginning. Their last bid was to have the faze in time reduced after it had become apparent that the Australian public’s plea for a better animal welfare system for pigs was to be all but ignored.

PF
That wont be the cause of Action I understand. - Thank You
Rojo.
There are dozens of books. Below is a few words of one.


FEED LOTS and INTENSIVE FARMING

We are on the verge of an enormous industrial transition, one based on the principles of sustainability.

For those businesses in Australia that have not woken up to the importance of sustainability, here is a question:

It is no longer possible to dismiss it as a fad. The pressures can only intensify.These major corporations understand that it is increasingly difficult to prosper in today’s world if they do not accommodate the concerns of the range of community interests.

While governments may have become more reluctant to impose restrictions and conditions on business, civil society has become more vigilant at exposing and punishing firms that contravene social .

Another object lesson in how we ignore sustainability at our peril has been provided by the foot-and-mouth and mad cow disease outbreaks in Britain.

As the magnitude of the foot-and-mouth disaster dawned on the British Government, Prime Minister Tony Blair mused in public over whether cheap food from industrial farming was worth the risk, and what it would cost to make British farming sustainable.

Britain has learned what it costs to be unsustainable.

Europe shows one future path for Australian farming: highly intensive farming based on feedlots, fertilisers and an increasingly fine sub-division of tasks − production line farming that allowed foot-and-mouth to spread with frightening speed.

Cows that eat grass do not catch mad cow disease.

Beef farming in Australia is much less dependent on intensive feedlots where cows are served up the pulverised brains of their kin.

Cows that wander over paddocks are also much less likely to catch foot and moth disease than herds standing flank-to-flank in muddy pens.

Yet the pressures to intensify farming are being felt in Australia.At present, Japanese consumers are willing to pay a 20 per cent price premium.

Pigs left to suffer By Nine Australian Poly`s.

Please support the Animals Australia Movement to stop this cruelty.
Look at their web page and read full details by clicking on The Animals Australia link below.

http://www.savebabe.com/eupdate/

Pale can not understand these people having such utter lack of concern for suffering animals.

Also its concerning what the Australian people feed their children and Familys.

Its well known that all sorts of intensive farming breads disease.

These animals must and will be converted to FREE RANGE.

If its done without the Industry then I guess Australia will have a new Industry then wont we.?

New Industry- New Ministers who dont support Animal Cruelty.
Whatever it takes will be done.

The Committe of Nine will be sitting their wondering what happend.

Why are the AVA so silent.?

You people make a mockery out of common decency.

Some Of the industry `itself` is starting to make their own moves to divert to Free Range.

Who do these people think they are to ignore the recomendations of RSPCA anyway?

In The next nine weeks pale will name one by one the People who sentenced these animals to another nine years of suffering.

In the next few months we will open petitions asking for their resignations by the Australian Public.

In the Strongest possible Terms we suggest the comittee of Nine reconsider.
'Please' dont try to give us more of your so called Science garbage.
Divert to Free Range asap in consideration of mass cruelty to Animals Peoples Health and lets be honest- Your Jobs.

Name And Shame.
Cruelty To Animals
Australians Say no.

PF,
It will be interesting to see if it becomes law and not just a senate bill. I guess it is something we will have to expect when there are only 4000 sows in a state of 3.5 million people. Can't get much less significant than that. I would assume a great many more activists than pig farmers.
"Arguments based on ‘science’ will mean nothing in the end."
I tend to agree. Such decisions are easy in times of plenty.

re: disease. Yes intensive farms are incubators of disease, but not necessarily the cause. A disease must enter the system in order to replicate. A big concern is the possibility of mutation once disease is present.
Intensive farms limit the interaction with other farm animals and between neighbours animals. Reducing spread vectors.

Rojo – I don’t know where you are getting your figures from, but according to information I have at hand, the NSW pig herd alone consists of over 89,000 sows. I can think of a couple of piggeries that have over 5,000 just in one operation. That’s a lot of sow stalls and gives a better picture of why these massive operations ‘need’ them.

“Intensive farms limit the interaction with other farm animals and between neighbours animals. Reducing spread vectors.”

In a perfect, sterile world maybe. You are ignoring a lot of contributing factors to the spread of disease in these situations. One of the biggest threats – rats – abundant and almost unstoppable given the design of intensive housing. If you have seen sow stalls in use you will also know that each sow has no choice but to have bodily contact with either neighbour – how quickly will disease spread in a situation like that? Add artificial heat, lack of ventilation and sunlight to the equation and then tell me again how sow stalls reduce spread vectors. Lets not also forget the contribution from humans or should I say lack of – cleanliness. Really, how often do you think these huge operations are cleaned? Maybe people like Andrew Spencer have their piggeries kept squeaky clean for media visits (about the only intensive piggery you see on tv) but in reality, most intensive farms invoke an involuntary vomit response. The immune systems of animals that are forced to live like this have to be compromised. Doesn’t matter if its pigs or people, you are right, disease has to come from somewhere but what hope has an intensive piggery got of stopping the spread?

Lucky these operations don’t actually need too many employees to operate them while they have sow stalls because they would have great difficulty finding staff to work in such appalling conditions.

PF, your link was about Oregon. I was refering to Oregon. Basically Oregon could ban pig production altogether without much of a stir.

You miss my point on spread vectors. I do no question the spread within a unit, but the spread between units.
the biggest risk for spread and to the eventual eradication(if it got here) of Foot and Mouth in Australia is the feral pig. Can they be any less intensive?

It's not like free range animals are immune from disease.
http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=16282011