Seaboard Farms Investigation

Sick and injured pigs were brought to a pen where they were, in many cases, left to die without veterinary care. This pig was unable to drink for days before finally dying.

PETA’s investigation at Seaboard, North America’s third-largest pig meat producer, caught employees on videotape throwing, beating, and kicking pigs, slamming them against concrete floors, and bludgeoning them with metal gate rods and hammers. After these beatings, the pigs were left to die from their injuries—many were still alive but so badly beaten that they couldn’t crawl to the food or water troughs.

Seaboard Farms manager Alejo Peña was charged with three counts of felony cruelty to animals for mercilessly bludgeoning pigs with iron gate rods in three separate incidents. Unfortunately, the decision made in this trial has been sealed, but this was the first case in U.S. history in which a farmer pleaded to felony cruelty to animals for injuring and killing animals raised for food.

In 1999, the first-ever felony indictments for cruelty to animals on a factory farm in the U.S. were issued against three workers after a PETA investigation into a pig-breeding facility called Belcross Farm in North Carolina. In that case, all three workers were convicted for their parts in the beating and bludgeoning of pigs, including the skinning of a sow who was still conscious. Read more about PETA’s investigation at Belcross.

Pigs too sick to be sent to the slaughterhouse were killed while others watched in terror. This pig tries to drag herself away from the farm manager as he shoots her in the head.

When in their natural surroundings, not on factory farms, pigs are social, playful, protective animals who bond with each other, make nests, relax in the sun, and cool off in the mud. Scientists have often found that these friendly animals are as smart as 3-year-old humans!

Even if they’re not so sadistically abused, pigs on modern farms spend their entire lives in cramped, filthy warehouses, under constant stress from the intensive confinement and deprived of everything that is natural and important to them. You can take a stand against cruelty to pigs and all animals on factory farms by adoption a healthy and humane vegetarian diet. Request a free vegetarian starter kit and DVD to get started today.