Japan: Piglets beaten to death at Nippon Ham

Piglets slammed against concrete and left to die on a Nippon Ham farm in Japan.

Cruel abuse documented

A new PETA video about Japan's leading pork producer, Nippon Ham, reveals that piglets and their mothers are being treated with appalling cruelty. While the company claims to care about human happiness and «thejoy of eating», it is clearly not concerned about animal welfare.

Workers at Nippon Ham grab piglets by their sensitive ears and toss them around like lifeless objects. Those deemed not “profitable” because they are too small or sick are discarded like rubbish.

Workers typically kill unwanted piglets by swinging them through the air and slamming their heads against the concrete floor, or by injecting disinfectant directly into their hearts. One piglet writhed in its death throes for five minutes.

Suffering with no way out

Mother pigs, or sows, are forced to spend most of their miserable lives confined in metal crates so small they cannot even turn around. Their muscles waste away and they are in a constant state of stiffness and pain.

The traumatised sows were forced to witness the suffering of their own piglets right before their eyes. Their babies squealed and thrashed violently as workers roughly castrated them or cut off their tails, and the mother pigs were powerless to do anything about it.

Born into a life of abuse

Thousands of sows are imprisoned and repeatedly subjected to artificial insemination against their will. They give birth to litter after litter of piglets, only for them to be taken away again and again. After years of round-the-clock confinement, repeated inseminations and pregnancies, they are exhausted and sent to slaughter.