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Would You Still Eat Pork If You Knew the Truth?

November 01, 2025

Sounds like a headline for a horror movie but in realty describes the brutal life of factory-farmed pigs. The language used may be upsetting for some people but the truth for millions of pigs in our country is a story of rape, torture, child abduction and murder…all in the name of bacon sandwiches and cheap sausages.

Pigs are one of the most intelligent species on the planet, they are sensitive and emotional, empathetic to other pigs within their group, they’re playful and have an amazing sense of smell.

In 2023 10.6 million pigs were slaughtered in the UK. On average we kill 200,000 pigs a week.

Rape

Like most farm animals, including turkeys, over 90% of the pigs in the UK are bred using artificial insemination. A technical term for a horrid process which involves a farm worker “milking”, basically masturbating a boar to collect their semen. The sows are then forcibly restrained and have the semen inserted into their vaginas via a plastic tube.

These intelligent, sentient beings are reduced to breeding machines, each sow enduring this process about twice a year, until their productivity drops and they are sent to slaughter. If pigs could speak, what would they call it? We call it rape.

Andrew Skowron / We Animals

There’s a couple of links below that show a sanitised version of the process

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7vhMFGNVgA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ikHQVAvsPE

Child Abduction

A week before the sow is due to give birth she is moved to a farrowing crater – a metal cage where she has no room to move. She stays there for up to 4 weeks after she’s given birth to her piglets. This is true for around 60% of pigs in the UK - the remaining 40% are placed in farrowing arc’s outside.

Andrew Skowron / We Animals

Jo-Anne McArthur / Animal Equality / We Animals

After 3-4 weeks the piglets,(those that are still alive, one in ten die before they leave their mothers) are put in “growing sheds” with other piglets.

Jo-Anne McArthur / We Animals

Lukas Vincour / Zvířata Nejíme / We Animals

Growing sheds tend to be barren, hard edged pens which offer no stimulation to the inquisitive and playful piglets. By this stage they will have had their tail cut off and their teeth clipped to prevent them biting each other.

Andrew Skowron / We Animals

Andrew Skowron / We Animals

They are fed solid food, iron supplements, medication and antibiotics to replace the natural antibodies, enzymes and goodness they would have got from their mother’s milk. In nature piglets would feed off their mother’s milk for 10-12 weeks.

But in the factory farm piglets are moved to “fattening” or finishing sheds at 10 weeks. 40% of these fattening sheds are bleak concrete pens, with slatted floors to allow the pig faeces to be washed away. Crowded and uncomfortable with a minimum of 0.65sqm per 100kg of pig, the fattening pen is a version of hell.

Andrew Skowron / We Animals

Selene Magnolia Gatti / We Animals

Murder

At 6 months old the horrific ordeal of life is over for the pigs. They are crammed into lorries with no food or water and driven to the slaughterhouse.
Around 88% of pigs are killed in gas chambers, a painful process that often sees pigs struggle before they lose consciousness.

Those not gassed to death are stunned by electronarcosis then hung up by their feet and have their throats cut.

Gabriela Penela / We Animals

Gabriela Penela / We Animals

If not done correctly the pigs regain consciousness as they have their throats slit and are left to bleed out.

Milos Bicanski / We Animals

In the wild pigs can live up to 15yrs but in the UK over 10 million pigs don’t even see their first birthday. All that intelligence, emotion, and life potential snuffed out for cheap meat

The Choice Is Yours

Factory farming isn’t farming—it’s an industrial horror show. Pigs deserve better. We all deserve better. To get an insight into the whole life cycle of the farmed pig watch this link https://viva.org.uk/animals/pigs/

Choosing plant-based alternatives isn’t just kinder; it’s smarter—for animals, for the planet, for us. If you care, there’s another way.