Pig farmer backs Kay's farm

A Kaipara pig farmer and Kaipara District councillor says his friend's pig farm is industry standard and believes his is also.

Paparoa pig farmer and pork producer Graham Taylor who is a former New Zealand Pork Board director, refers to his "friend" Colin Kay whose piggery was cleared by MAF animal welfare investigators after TVNZ's Sunday documentary showed disturbing images of pigs which shocked the nation.

Mr Taylor, who owns the Long Flat Bacon Company and who has been a NZPB director for 15 years until last year when he and Colin Kay retired at the same time, says the documentary was biased and "did not tell the truth".

"The footage was taken at 4am, it was at a time when the animals would not have been expecting anyone in the enclosure," he says.

Mr Taylor says it's not surprising the animals were munching on the metal bars, "they would have thought they were going to be fed".

"Pigs bite bars the same way dogs chew on bones," he says.

Mr Taylor says the documentary described the pigs as frothing at the mouth.

"Or were they just salivating because they were hungry," he says.

The documentary pictured one pig that was dead. Mr Taylor's response was that Mr Kay would have last checked the pigs at 7 o'clock in the evening so it would have died after this time.

He argues it would not have been dead for long.

"Pigs die, it's an unfortunate fact of life."

He says it is inhumane to have pigs roaming freely on farmland, not the other way around.

"A pig is not a ruminant or cud chewing animals like a cow or sheep which have multiple stomachs.

"Therefore pigs can't eat grass - unless it's a Kunikuni which is the only pig breed that will survive on grass."

He says pigs do not get any nutrients out of pasture and in doing so they make one hell of a mess, digging for roots.

"Unlike sheep they don't have wool on them to protect them from the elements either."

He describes a pig's skin being similar to human skin, "they get severely sunburned".

Another concern with having pigs running freely is that they are extremely territorial.

"They end up fighting each other to establish a pecking order and as they are cannibals, they will eat one another."

He says productivity on free-range farms would be lower because the animals would be stressed due to their territorial nature.

Mr Taylor is able to run his operation successfully because he and wife Sally can spend 12 hours a day with their pigs, seven days per week, "and that's because they are housed", he says.

He admits that the sows that are kept in the cages can't turn around, but says that it is a matter of security for the sow.

"She can eat in peace without being disturbed," he says.

It was reported in national media that a pig was as "intelligent as a three-year-old child".

"I do not agree that a pig is as intelligent as a three-year-old, for goodness sakes most three-year-olds can talk, a pig can't," Mr Taylor says.

Referring to the Sunday documentary where a woman rescued a pig from an intensive commercial piggery, Mr Taylor says freedom is a human construct.

He says commercial pig farming is a "high cost, low return industry".

"If I wanted to make money I would be doing anything else but pig farming but it's been in my family for donkey's years and it's what I love."

When the Dargaville and Districts News visited the Taylor farm on Wednesday we saw 200 sows in enclosures which produce up to 80 piglets each week.

"I defy you to tell me my pigs are crazy," he says.

Dargaville and Districts News reporters saw pigs which appeared to be quiet, calm and responding to their owners' affection. Pigs were not observed chewing on enclosure bars.

At the Taylor farm, newly pregnant sows were in confined spaces called pig stalls, older piglets were in larger pig pens and sows that had given birth were in farrowing stalls with their litters, separated from the piglets by bars but the sow was able to position herself so the young could feed from her, without being smothered.

Animal welfare watchdog group SAFE issued a statement saying it has already received sensitive information about other pig farms since the exposé on the Sunday programme.

The group wants information identifying pig farms where there is extreme animal cruelty or neglect that is likely to result in MAF taking legal action once a complaint is made.

- © Fairfax NZ News