Australia's Largest Pork Producer in the Spotlight Again for Animal Cruelty

As part of the pork industry’s self-declared “Bacon Week”, animal advocacy organisation Aussie Farms has so far exposed cruelty at a further 4 piggeries, two of which are owned by Australia’s largest pig farming company Rivalea.

This comes not two months after world-first footage revealed the horrific fate of thousands of pigs sent to the gas chamber at Rivalea’s slaughterhouse in Corowa NSW, the largest pig slaughterhouse in Australia, where pigs were seen screaming and trashing as they were lowered into the gas after being forced into the chamber by use of electric cattle prods (www.aussiepigs.com/piggeries/corowa/videos).

Over the last two nights, an additional two facilities owned by Rivalea were cast into the spotlight for gross animal mistreatment: Huntly Piggery, near Bendigo VIC, and Bungowannah Piggery, near Albury NSW.

Operations Director for Aussie Farms, Chris Delforce, described the scenes at the piggeries: “There’s a lot of dead piglets, many of them killed by ‘overlay’, which is where the sows lie down and crush their young due to the confinement of the farrowing crates and their consequent weakness or lameness. We’re seeing pressure wounds and other gaping, untreated wounds on sows; piglets’ faces grazed and bloody; sows absolutely covered in flies; a piglet left on the ground with his eye gouged out and a small incision in his belly through which his insides had been pulled out; a sow’s teat completely torn open; and much more, including the usual issues of confinement to small cages in farrowing crates and sow stalls.”

“Rivalea made an announcement seven years ago that they were getting rid of their sow stalls, yet the stalls are still being secretly used at Bungowannah Piggery. All of this from a company that apparently prides itself on animal welfare.”

The footage and photos can be viewed at www.aussiepigs.com/piggeries/huntly and www.aussiepigs.com/piggeries/bungowannah.