Gestation Creates

They Have To Go

In children’s movies and storybooks, pigs are portrayed in a jovial way as being intelligent and able to interact with humans and other pigs in a meaningful way…and that is the truth. Most animal scientists consider pigs to be highly trainable and very sociable. Contrary to their reputation, pigs are very clean animals who, when left to their own devices, maintain a clean environment for themselves. They roll in mud simply to stay cool. If allowed, pigs form close social and family bonds. They mate, remain together, and nurture their young just as a human family does.

Unfortunately for these animals, humans have decided that pig flesh should be available in nearly every grocery store…and this is the reason their life is a living hell.

On modern factory farms, breeding sows spend months of hideous confinement in narrow devices called gestation crates. Slated floors beneath their feet remove body wastes. The pigs never see sunlight and toxic fumes fill the air. Mother pigs are transferred to farrowing crates after giving birth. The crates prevent the mom and her babies from snuggling and interacting. Bars divide the mother from the offspring so that only nursing can take place. She is then impregnated again and returned to the gestation crate to do it all over again…and again…and again.

Maryland Votes for Animals, Inc. continues to work with advocates to establish humane farming practices in our state. Gestation crates do exist in Maryland. Years before Maryland Votes for Animals, Inc. was established, a bill to outlaw gestation crates was introduced in The Maryland General Assembly. Unfortunately, vocal farmers and representatives from the meat industry mobilized to defeat the bill.

Gestation Crates are only one step in the institutionalized torture of animals in factory farming. Together, we will work to pass legislation in Maryland to end the needless suffering of our farm animals.