If Pigs Could Speak

If Pigs Could Speak
By Andrew Kirschner
I am a pig.
I am a happy and affectionate animal by nature.
I like to play in the grass and nurture my young.
In the wild, I eat leaves, roots, grass, flowers, and fruits.
I have a terrific sense of smell and I am highly intelligent.
I am a pig.
I can learn tasks as quickly as chimpanzees and faster than dogs.
I roll around in mud to cool down
but I am a very clean animal
and don't excrete anywhere near where I live.
I speak my own language that you cannot understand.
I am often loved as a house mate.
I like being in groups and live a long natural life in the wild or a safe home.
I enjoy interacting with people and I am very gentle.
I wish I could do and be all of those things
but I was born on a factory farm like billions of other pigs
and so I experience none of them.
I am a pig.
If I could speak
I would tell you that I spend my life
in a crowded and filthy warehouse
in a tiny metal crate.
The owners call it a farm so you won't feel bad for me.
It's not a farm.
My life is miserable from the day I'm born until the day I die.
In many cases, I live my entire life in a gestation crate
where I can't even turn around.
I try to escape but can't.
I suffer severe emotional and physical ailments
as a result of my confinement.
I have bruises all over my head and face
from trying to get out of my cage.
I bang my head against the bars.
It is analogous to living in a coffin.
I am a pig.
If I could speak I would tell you that
I don't ever feel the warmth of another pig.
I only feel the cold metal bars of my cage
and the feces that I am forced to sleep in.
I don't see daylight until a trucker drives me to a slaughterhouse.
I am a pig.
I am beaten often by ruthless factory farmers
who take pleasure in hearing me squeal.
I am constantly impregnated
and do not have any interaction with my piglets.
My feet are tied together so I am forced to stand all day.
When I was born, I was separated from my mother.
In the wild, I would have stayed with her for five months.
Now I am forced to have 25 piglets a year through artificial insemination
as opposed to six per year I would have in the wild.
Being in a constant state of pregnancy is slow torture.
Overcrowding and the smell of being covered in raw sewage
causes many of us to go insane
and bite each other through our cages.
Sometimes we kill each other.
It's not our nature.
My home smells of ammonia.
I sleep on concrete.
I am tied up so I can't even roll over.
My food is loaded with artificial fats that cause me terrible health problems
so my owners can make more money off my size.
I am never able to search for food as I do by instinct in the wild.
I am a pig.
I am bored and have nothing to do
so I bite my tail and the tails of others
so the factory farmers cut off our tails
without any pain killers.
It is excruciating and causes infection.
When it's time for us to be killed,
we are supposed to be stunned to death with a bolt gun
until we can't feel pain
but often the gun is not properly charged or the stunner misses,
or we're too big for it
and it fails to work properly.
Sometimes we go through the slaughter process
sticking, skinning, dismembering, and eviscerating –
alive, conscious, and kicking.
I am a pig.
If I could speak
I would tell you we suffer horribly.
Our death is slow and violent torture.
It can last as long as 20 minutes.
If you saw it happen,
you would probably never eat an animal again.
That's why what happens inside factory farms
is the best kept secret in the world.
I am a pig.
You can dismiss me as a worthless animal.
Call me filthy even though I am clean by nature.
Say I don't matter because I taste good to eat.
Be indifferent to my suffering.
But now you know,
I feel pain, sadness, and fear.
I suffer.
Even though I will be killed
and deprived of a humane and natural life
You now know it is wrong
and if you continue eating animals like me
when you don't need to eat them to survive
it will be on your conscience
and you bear responsibility for the cruelty
because you're funding it by purchasing my flesh
99% of which comes from factory farms.
You have a choice
to live a cruelty-free life
and go vegan.
It's much easier than you think
and it is a very fulfilling lifestyle —
healthier for you,
better for the environment,
and most of all,
it does not contribute to the abuse of animals.
Please give it some thought.
I am no more meant to be eaten by you
than you are meant to be eaten by me.
The idea of eating me is a human creation for profit
not a divine one or one born of necessity but rather choice.
If you could choose not to abuse an animal, would you?
If the choice of ending animal cruelty
meant making some simple changes in your life,
would you make them?
Forget about cultural norms.
Do what you know is right.
Align your compassionate heart and mind
with your actions.
Please stop eating pork, ham, bacon, sausage
and buying other products made from pig body parts such as leather.
I am a pig.
I'm begging you to develop the same respect for me
that you have for your dog or cat.
During the time it took you to read this message,
approximately 26,000 pigs were brutally slaughtered
on factory farms.
Simply because you didn't see it happen
doesn't mean it didn't happen.
It did.
I am a pig.
I had only one life on this earth.
It's too late for me
but it is not too late for you to make a change
like millions of other people
and save other animals from the life I lived.
I hope animals' lives will begin to mean more to you now –
now that you know.
I was a pig.