The images in the following program are highly sensitive and may be as disturbing to viewers as they were to us. However, we have to show the truth about cruelty to animals, praying that you will help to stop it.

Today’s Animal World: Our Co-Inhabitants will be presented in Spanish, with subtitles in Arabic, Aulacese (Vietnamese), Chinese, English, French, German, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Mongolian, Persian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Thai.

This is the Stop Animal Cruelty program on Supreme Master Television. Animal Equality is an international non-profit organization based in Madrid, Spain that seeks the abolition of animal slavery.

The group works to raise awareness of how animals are abused and tortured by humankind and wants an immediate end to all animal exploitation. Key to meeting their objective is the promotion of lifestyles free of all animal products. Sharon Núñez is a co-founder of Animal Equality and their president and spokesperson.

Animal Equality has three fundamental pillars that are also in a way the slogan of the organization, which is to “Educate, Research and Rescue.” We carry out investigations in those places where animals are exploited, such as pig farms, slaughterhouses, mink farms, and circuses.

We rescue those animals for whom we have found a home, for example we held Spain’s first-ever “open rescue,” rescuing six pigs at a farm and we also use these tools to inform society about the terrible injustices committed against animals.

Today we present the first in a three-part series featuring excerpts from an Animal Equality- produced film entitled “Pig Farms” which documents the findings of 60 Animal Equality activists after investigating 172 different pig farms across Spain.

We spent two years, working, doing researching into pig farms, which made headlines in all the Spanish TV news, with one of our spokespersons, Javier Moreno, going on talk shows: CNNplus and Tele 5, so very important.

Pig Farms – An Animal Equality documentary

For more than two years, between February 2008 and March 2010, the Animal Equality Investigation Team documented what occurs behind the walls of more than 150 pig farms located throughout Spain. This is the result of that work. The Spanish pig industry kills more than 40 million pigs a year to satisfy society’s demand for meat. All these animals are born and live horribly in some 10,000 farms. In this film you will be able to see what no one has shown until now, a new dimension, in fear, suffering and death.

Gestation

So called “breeding sows” are used as machines to produce piglets. They are genetically selected to withstand between six and eight births, with 12 or more offspring in each litter, and their lives are reduced to a state of permanent confinement in narrow metal stalls.

Identification

To better keep track of the exploited animals, some farms insert a microchip in the ears of the sows, which is very painful.

Insemination

Before inseminating the sows, the farmer must check if they are receptive. Two methods are used. The first involves using a boar to detect if the sow is in heat from her smell. In general, the presence of a boar helps to insure that a sow will go into heat again after her babies have been weaned. In the second method the farmer himself will verify her fertility by using a heat detector or observing how the sow reacts when he presses on her back. When she is in heat, she does not move.

Once her state of her fertility is known insemination follows. To force the female into the required position, the farmer does not hesitate to resort to blows, kicks, tail pulling, shoving and shouting. Next the farmer cleans the sow’s vulva and inserts semen of the selected boars into the female, by a tube of around 50 centimeters in length. No physical contact occurs between the boars and the sows; nor is the development of natural behavior permitted.

Confinement and gestation

A sow’s pregnancy lasts between 110 and 120 days and the first month is spent confined in narrow sow stalls, also known as gestation crates. They are unable to move due to the size of the stalls. Distressed by the lack of space, they desperately try to escape. The constant friction of these animals’ bodies against the bars of the stalls causes painful injuries which become infected from the lack of hygiene.

These sociable and curious animals end up displaying neurotic behavior. They bite the bars or bang their heads against them, all of which are symptoms of the severe psychological distress they are suffering. After a month in the gestation crates, the sows are transferred to another area, where they remain in groups. This worker can be seen inserting his fingers into this pig’s eyes to get her to turn around.

Maternity

Piglets arrive into the world upon concrete, plastic, or metal floors, surrounded by excrement and the bodies of still-born siblings. Many of them, roughly 10% die soon after birth, after hours or even days of suffering. Miscarriages are frequent, although not all are born dead. Some premature piglets agonize for hours before dying. Sows who miscarry are marked and a recurrence means they will be sent to the slaughterhouse.

Again, we see how blows are used, this time to force a pig who has just given birth onto her feet, and the farmer checks if her other babies are still alive by introducing more than half his arm into her uterus. This worker is collecting the remains of miscarriages and the bodies of dead babies. Pigs possess a strong maternal instinct but the cages prevent them from giving any type of care to their babies.

The suffering of this mother can be felt as she watches her baby die in front of her eyes without being able to do anything to help her. In nature the mother pig will build a nest where she can give birth comfortably and look after her babies. This soft bed would give warmth and lessen the impact of any crushing. On a farm however, the mother will frequently crush a baby due to her lack of space and the concrete floor.

Many piglets do not die immediately after being crushed but are paralyzed and spend days suffering. Due to the slatted floors used on the farm, on many occasions the piglets’ feet get trapped in the slats causing bone breakages, a problem that they will drag around with them during the entire process of exploitation as broken bones are rarely treated.

Behavior as natural as suckling her babies is also painful for the mother. Due to the lack of movement and space, she isn’t able to lie comfortably, or get away from her offspring when they hurt her, resulting in injuries to her teats which can become infected affecting both mother and baby. A life of slavery and hardship has serious psychological effects on the pigs.

Here we have the same, an eye infection, probably, that reach the head and finally the whole area is necrotic. The difficulty of the images is such that practically no explanation is needed of the terrible anguish and terrible suffering that these animals feel. But then too, there is the psychological stress of being locked in cages for a lifetime; which drives them crazy, they have stereotypical behaviors, they go around in the cages.

So well, there are no words to describe what we saw during this investigation. But I reiterate how important it is because these images came out on Tele 5, and have appeared on channel Four, and have appeared in many digital media outlets. And that is our goal and what we have to be doing.

We deeply thank you Sharon Núñez and all others involved in the production of “Pig Farms” for allowing us to share your documentary with our global viewers. By showing the world the indescribable cruelty of factory farming in your film and other animal advocacy efforts, may you continue to reach many people with your compassionate message that animals are our equals.

Let us all do our part right now to stop the madness of animal exploitation and killing by always avoiding animal products. May we instead support the life-celebrating organic vegan lifestyle which allows our pig and other animal friends to live in tranquility and joy.

For more details on Animal Equality, please visit www.AnimalEquality.net

We thank you for your company today on our program. Please join us again for part two of our three-part presentation of “Pig Farms” next Tuesday on Stop Animal Cruelty. Enlightening Entertainment is next, after Noteworthy News. May we forever hold all life as Divine and sacred.