WASHINGTON — An undercover video shot at an Iowa pig farm shows workers hitting sows with metal rods, slamming piglets on a concrete floor and bragging about jamming rods up into sows’ hindquarters.
The description of the video, obtained by the Associated Press, may disturb some readers.
On the video, a supervisor tells an undercover investigator for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals that when he gets angry or a sow won’t move, “I grab one of these rods and jam it in her (anus).”
The farm, located outside of Bayard, Iowa, is a supplier to Hormel Foods of Austin, Minn. PETA wants to use the results of the investigation to pressure Hormel, the maker of Spam and other food products, to demand that its suppliers ensure humane treatment of pigs.
Hormel spokeswoman Julie Henderson Craven on Tuesday called the abuses “completely unacceptable.”
The animal rights group also planned to send the video to the sheriff in Greene County, Iowa, seeking prosecution of 18 people on animal cruelty violations. According to PETA Vice President Bruce Friedrich, the video shows eight people directly abusing animals.
“Abuse on factory farms is the absolute norm, not the exception, and anyone eating factory-farmed meat is paying to support it,” Friedrich said.
After getting a whistleblower complaint from someone inside the farm, PETA sent two undercover investigators to get hired at the farm and document its practices — one from June 10 to Sept. 8, and the other from July 23 to Sept. 11.
At one point on the video, an employee shouts to an investigator, “Hurt ‘em! There’s nobody works for PETA out here. You know who PETA is?”
The undercover PETA investigator replies that he’s heard of the group.
“I hate them. These (expletives) deserve to be hurt. Hurt, I say!,” the employee yells as he hits a sow with a metal rod. “Hurt! Hurt! Hurt! Hurt! … Take out your frustrations on ‘em.”
He encourages the investigator to pretend that one of the pigs scared off a voluptuous and willing 17- or 18-year-old girl, and then beat the pig for it.
Records at the Greene County Assessor’s Office show the property was owned by Natural Pork Production II LLP of Iowa until Aug. 18, and then was transferred to MowMar LLP of Fairmont, Minn.
Lynn Becker, an owner of MowMar, called the abuses on the video “completely intolerable, reprehensible. We condemn these types of acts. If any animals were abused in the brief time we’ve owned the farm, if we still employ these people, any attempt will made to investigate and initiate corrective action immediately.”
At one point in the video, workers are shown slamming piglets on the ground, a practice designed to instantly kill those baby pigs that aren’t healthy enough. But on the video, the piglets are not killed instantly, and in a bloodied pile, some piglets can be seen wiggling vainly. The video also shows piglets being castrated, and having their tails cut off, without anesthesia.
Temple Grandin, a leading animal welfare expert who serves as a consultant to the livestock industry, said that while those are standard industry practices, the treatment of the sows on the video was far from it.
“This is atrocious animal abuse,” Grandin said after PETA sent her the video. But she disagreed with PETA’s contention that it was widespread in the industry.
“I’ve been on many good farms, and the pigs are handled gently,” she said. “This was blatant, deliberate animal cruelty. These people are sick. They need to be prosecuted. There are certain people that enjoy hurting animals and they should not be working with them — period.”
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
