NSW: Pig farming practices in need of review: Greens

AAP General News (Australia)
12-15-2003
NSW: Pig farming practices in need of review: Greens

SYDNEY, Dec 15 AAP - Greens MP Lee Rhiannon has admitted she conducted an illegal "raid"

on a piggery in north-western NSW in the early hours of the morning last Monday.

The midnight break-in at a piggery, near Tamworth, which she carried out with Animal
Liberation executive director Mark Pearson, was over concerns about pigs being housed
in under-sized stalls.

Ms Rhiannon said the practice, which is banned in the United Kingdom, should be outlawed
in Australia because it was inhumane.

Ms Rhiannon said the pair found more than 1,500 pregnant sows in under-sized stalls.

One shed was littered with blood and the remains of at least one piglet killed by feral
cats, she said.

A newborn piglet was found bagged among rubbish with its umbilical cord still attached.

"It was still quite fresh - the umbilical cord had not even dried," Ms Rhiannon said,
showing reporters film footage of the animal's condition.

Almost two-thirds of the 300,000 breeding sows in Australia were kept in confinement
and fed only once a day, Mr Pearson said.

"The rest of the day is spent rocking back and forwards, biting the bar in front of
them," he said.

"By the time the four of five years of their economic production is up, they are slaughtered
for their trouble."

Ms Rhiannon said it was necessary to illegally break into the piggery to get access,
and she would do it again.

"If the law isn't upheld, a window needs to be opened on it," she said.

Ms Rhiannon said the Greens wanted the practice reformed by the Carr government ahead
of an industry review this month.

It already had been banned in the UK, Norway and Sweden, she said.

Comment was being sought from the piggery.

AAP ea/sd/jv/jlw

KEYWORD: PIGS

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