Undercover Investigations // Pigs
Rampant Abuse at a South Dakota Pig FarmA pig farm investigation turned up gratuitous and systematic abuse, including animals beaten with shovels, cooked alive, and drowned in their own excrement, while authorities refuse to do anything about it.
A year-long investigation by the Humane Farming Association (HFA) of the Sun Prairie Rosebud Operation pig farm in Mellette County, South Dakota, found widespread and systematic abuse of roughly 100,000 pigs. Gratuitous abuse of pigs was common. Workers would extinguish cigarettes on their bodies, beat them with rakes and shovels, kick them, stick poles in their stomach ruptures, strangle them, throw them into manure pits to drown, slit their throats to watch them bleed to death, and stick electric prods in their eyes, ears, mouth, vaginas, and anuses. These abuses were condoned by management.  Workers killed pigs typically by smashing their heads repeatedly against the concrete floors or metal rails or by standing on their necks. Larger pigs were often beaten to death with hammers, rebar rods, and angle irons. Others had a water hose placed in their mouths until they burst. Animals thrown in the dead pile often remained alive for days.
Sick or injured animals were dragged out of their pens into the aisles and left there for weeks until they died of hunger or thirst, in many cases resorting in desperation to eating feces. Others were left in pens where, unable to reach food, they starved to death or, when trapped under heating devices, were literally cooked alive. Conditions were so bad that every day, larger pigs would eat weaker ones alive. Hernias and stomach ruptures, some the size of volleyballs, were common and generally received no treatment.
Climate control devices were not in working order. Pigs often suffered from subzero temperatures in winter and temperatures as high as 120°F in the summer. The pens were not cleaned during the entire six months of confinement, leaving floors covered with feces and urine accumulating along the backs of pens and pouring into alleyways. In many cases, clogs and nonfunctioning flush boxes would fill pens with sewage so deep that some pigs would drown in it. Conditions were so inhumane that in many barns, death rates reached 30 to 60 percent. Investigation Photo Gallery What You Can Do
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HFA’s petition fell on deaf ears because state laws are ineffective at protecting farmed animals and the Animal Welfare Act exempts farmed animals entirely. One inspector stated, “I believe it to be a well run and managed operation and the manager and employees need to be commended for their efforts.” Whistleblowers report that these cruelties continue to this day.