Why Free Range?

 

Free Range ... more than just animal welfare

The benefits of free range pork production are enormous for the health and wellbeing of the animals, but what about the benefits to your health?  You may not see it immediately when you are looking at pigs rooting around in the earth and bathing themselves in mud!

 

I really don't want to dwell on the negatives of factory farmed pigs, but I have assumed for too long that the majority of people are well informed about how their food is produced. Not so!  This has been brought home to me by visitors to our farm from the 'city'. Please don't take offence.......  Many people have never had any connections with their food source and all they know is what is portrayed to them in the media. A perfect example was my son and some mates came to the farm for a weekend.  Danny just loves fresh eggs. His friends followed him around while he collected eggs for breakfast. It wasn't until he started cracking them into a frying pan that one mate said, quite alarmed "You're not going to eat those??!!!.  Gross!"  I asked him were he thought eggs came from and his  answer was 'Woollies'.  Another female visitor, after carrying a basket of eggs to the kitchen, timidly asked "but there not the sort that you eat though are they?"   So,  for those of you that have only thought about free range pork as an animal welfare issue, it does impact on you welfare too and I will attempt to explain the differences between free range production and intensive pig farming.

 

Sow Stalls:  If a piggery uses sow stalls, it is generally were the 'dry sow' will spend the majority of her life. It is a narrow cage that allows the pig to move back far enough to defecate over slats that cover an effluent pit. The stalls allow little sideways movement and the sow can never turn around. There is a picture of the old stalls that were in our sheds on the 'Farm Album' page. There is also an after shot to show how we have converted them.  A bank of 16 stalls still remain in one shed. We make great use of them for catching sows that need to go to the boar, close examination of the herd, vaccinations etc.

 

Alternatives to Sow Stall: Free Range of course is the ideal, but impossible for very large operations.  Group housing of sows in large pens instead of stalls, or deep litter systems in eco shelters would be so much more humane.

 

Farrowing Crates:  Crushing her young is simply something sows do. No matter what method of housing you use, it will happen. Maybe nature planned it that way? Sows can give birth to so many! Sometimes she doesn't have enough teats to go around and things sort of get evened out. That's my experience anyway. Sows are very docile after giving birth and some just don't seem to hear a piglets screams if she lays on them. That's why we base our selection of sows for breeding on their instinctive behaviour. We do get piglets laid on, but it is minimal. Farrowing crates were designed to try and stop any crushing. This means that the sow is in a very snug fitting stall that really restricts her movement. The idea is that she is forced to lay down very slowly, giving her young plenty of time to get out of the way. Even with all those restrictive bars, it still happens.

 

Alternatives to Farrowing Crates:  If the aim is to stop all laid on piglets, there really is no way of achieving this. Farrowing crates may reduce the numbers, but they do not stop it.  I have watched how a sow will lay down when she is given enough room and plenty of straw.  As she is about to lay down, she makes a sort of warning sound, snouts the straw the length of her body quite roughly actually shoving any piglets out of the way. This action always alerts all but the weak piglets to get out of the way, mums coming down! 

 

Free Range pig farms do not use sow stalls or farrowing crates.

 

Feed Additives:  This is the part of pork production that may affect your welfare. Things that may get added to a pigs diet are:

 

Antibiotics:  When you raise any animal intensively, not just pigs, disease will always be a problem.  Pigs in confined conditions are usually fed antibiotics most of there lives, if not to treat an illness, then an attempt to prevent one.  

 

Vitamins and Minerals:  Very necessary for the survival of the pigs. Not as necessary for free range pigs because they get them from the plants and soil they eat as nature intended.

 

Lysine: An amino acid very necessary for the fast growth of pigs. Would be otherwise impossible to provide high levels from a grain fed diet alone. Pigs are meat eaters and lysine in the diet will be necessary if meat is not available to them in the form of a meal.

 

Paylean:  A drug fed to pigs to stop them laying down fat and promotes fast muscle growth in the last few weeks before slaughter. There is no withholding period for this drug.

 

Growth Promotants:  Antibiotics, hormones and products like Paylean are used for this purpose. 

 

Hormones:  Yes, hormones are used in the australian pig industry.  Reporcin is used as a growth promoter and to limit the amount of fat in pigs. Non hormonal growth promoters, like Paylean a beta agonist, are used in conjunction with hormones to produce a fast growing, very lean carcass.  Hormones are used quite extensively in the intensive industry  to regulate breeding cycles also.  

 

Good nutrition starts from the soil up. Living soil gives life to the plants that are consumed by pigs and believe me they relish them!  They do actually consume a lot of soil.  While they are eating this soil they are also consuming all those good bugs so important for gut health. No different to us humans looking for acidophilus in our yogurt, Inner Health capsules or drinking Yokult   How can an animal that doesn't have access to something so important as this, and never feel the sun shine on its back, possibly reach optimal health?  This is the food you eat - you have a choice.