Today’s Animal World: Our Co-Inhabitants will be presented in Swedish, with subtitles in Arabic, Aulacese (Vietnamese), Chinese, English, French, German, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Mongolian, Persian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Thai.

I remember one thing in particular from my visits to the pig factories. I will never forget those sad eyes. The other pigs were crowded and tried to escape the dirty boxes. He just stood there and looked at me straight in the eyes. I felt so helpless. It was painful to leave him there.

For the past two years, Animal Rights Alliance has examined the Swedish pig industry. One hundred farms across the country have been visited. The investigation reveals widespread animal cruelty and shatters the myth of Swedish animal welfare. Animal Rights Alliance presents LIFE AS A PIG

Pigs are among the world’s cleanest and most intelligent animals, and possess tender, affectionate hearts. In the wild they live in forests and enjoy native delicacies such as grasses and roots. Mother pigs spend days building nests with leaves or straw to welcome and raise their young. Studies have shown that the mothers sing for their piglets while nursing them.

These clever, chubby animals are playful and protective, and form loving relationships with family and friends just as humans do. Anyone who has ever spent time with pigs will agree they are adorable, warm beings who desire a good snuggle from a human anytime.

Sadly, however, the vast majority of these soulful animals with eyes that sparkle like those of humans are factory farmed. Around the world, pigs are bred mechanically in a kind of living death, without regard for their feelings, thoughts and needs.

On today’s Stop Animal Cruelty program we present excerpts from a heart-wrenching documentary by the Swedish animal welfare group the Animal Rights Alliance entitled, “Life as a Pig,” which reveals the shocking reality behind the pig-raising industry in Sweden. Words cannot describe the agonies of factory-farmed pigs, which begin at birth and last until the moment of their tragic deaths.

Pigs in Swedish farms are born on hard, concrete floors. The sows are made to give birth to big litters, which results in a high fatality rate. An average of two piglets per litter die within the first month. Before the slaughter truck arrives, many more will die. Despite this, the pig farmers are counting profits. The sows are used for three years.

They never get to go out. They spend a big part of their lives lying down, which leads to serious bedsores on the shoulder blades, so-called “bogs.” The wounds often get infected and attracts flies. Piglets normally suckle until they are 17 weeks, but the pig factory separates them from their mothers after only five weeks. They are removed to a growth section where the litters are divided and sorted by weight.

The last period of their lives is spent in a slaughter pig box. In a box of nine square meters, 10 pigs are cramped together. The pigs have been bred to grow as fast as possible, which leads to pain in their bones and joints. The concrete floors in the narrow boxes are soon covered by feces and urine.

And although they are supposed to be cleaned daily, the activists found farms where the pigs had to sit and lie down in their own excrement. On many farms, the Animal Rights Alliance’s resource group found dead pigs left to rot among their living box friends. Whether the pigs spend their lives for breeding or are slaughtered at six months old, it is a life of suffering and misery.

Most meat eaters are ignorant of how the flesh they consume is really produced. This is due to an intentional cover-up by the meat industry of the unimaginably horrible and disgusting truth behind meat production.

Every year three-million pigs are killed at Swedish slaughterhouses. This means that a pig dies every ten seconds. Pork industry representatives want to claim that the pigs bred on Swedish farms are living a natural and happy life. On their own web homepage they proudly explain what Swedish pig production is all about. The reality looks completely different.

Sweden’s pig industry’s lies countered with facts. “The Swedish Animal Welfare Act ensures that the animals are reared in a setting where they can engage in their natural behaviors.”

The pigs are significantly stressed, and stereotypes like biting on bars are occuring. Some pigs bite frenetically on grills to allay their anxiety and stress. Others are completely apathetic and give up. They just sit quietly with empty eyes, without paying attention to their surroundings.

Swedish pigs have access to litter in the form of straw or otherwise.

An example of natural behaviors that pigs need the opportunity to do are rooting and nesting. Without sufficient quantities of straw, however, this is impossible. Pigs are intelligent animals with a great need for activity. If they are not given the opportunity to do this, it drives them to insanity, just like dogs would do under similar conditions.

The Animal Rights Alliance found that 94% of the farms had no satisfactory amount of litter. Many of the visited farms were very dirty.

The dirt was really extreme at many locations. The stench embedded itself into clothes, and sometimes it was hard to breathe. And it is so sad to see such clean animals living under such conditions. Pigs are, of course, very careful to keep their toilet away from their sleeping place, but it is impossible for them here on these surfaces. Here they are forced to actually sleep in their own excrement.

Our Swedish model advocates that slaughter pigs get straw to occupy themselves. Thus tail biting is prevented.

The pigs have really nothing to do in those places here than trying to root in the concrete floor, bite on the bars or attack each other.

Sows should be able to walk free and not be tied or fixed. The Swedish sow is to walk freely during farrowing and are thus able to exercise their nesting instincts.

When Stop Animal Cruelty returns, we’ll continue our presentation of the documentary “Life as a Pig," by the Swedish animal welfare group the Animal Rights Alliance. Please stay tuned to Supreme Master Television.

This is Stop Animal Cruelty series on Supreme Master Television featuring excerpts from the documentary, “Life as a Pig," by the non-profit Swedish animal welfare organization the Animal Rights Alliance, which reveals the sordid truth about Sweden’s ghastly pig factory farms.

After tormented childhoods, female pigs used for breeding are moved to tiny crates and repeatedly subjected to artificial insemination to produce piglets that are destined to be ruthlessly slaughtered for meat.

In one out of five piglet rearing, the Animal Rights Alliance found fixated sows. Fixation means that the pig is locked into a cage of metal gates. She cannot turn around or go anywhere, just stand up or lie down. Although there are laws in Sweden against fixation, fixation booths are used routinely on many farms.

On one such farm, all the farm's 74 sows were fixed, both sows that had already given birth and those who would give birth. In an agricultural high school where Swedish husbandry is taught, were a large number of fixed sows. Fixation is a way for the farmers to minimize their work and maximize their profits.

The Swedish model offers healthy animals with animals living as they like.

On 95% of the visited farms injured or sick animals were found. Scratch and bite injuries were common and they had, in many cases, become infected sores and abscesses. Little piglets often get blisters from lying on the hard concrete. Some farms are trying to prevent this, not by giving plenty of litter, but by taping the legs of the piglets.

Diseased pigs are left untreated and the bodies of the dead are piled next to their live siblings, sometimes for days on end. Pigs spend their entire lifetimes in one long unending nightmare.

The Animal Rights Alliance research team also found infected eye injuries, large, open wounds and broken, beaten ears. Many serious cases of hernia were also documented, where a large portion of the pigs' intestines penetrated through the abdominal wall and hung in a bag on their stomachs.

In a survey released by Swedish Animal Health, it was found that 12% of pigs had developed stomach ulcers, and half had started getting ulcers. On many farms, the pigs had broken bones. These are usually never treated. They either kill the pig or they remain in their box and are forced to live with the injury.

Although the law says that Swedish pig sheds should have windows or allow the equivalent amount of daylight to enter, activists found several farms with covered windows. Most pigs never see sunlight, other than on the way to the slaughterhouse.

Also frequently occurring were neglected hooves, some so bad that they had grown crossed. This causes immense suffering for pigs. On almost all farms activists found dead pigs. They remained among their siblings in aisles, outside doors, thrown into the manure piles and in large containers in the yard.

One of the first places I visited was a pig farm in Scanian Skivarps. I think it was probably one of the worst I have ever been to. I remember when I went into the pig barn the first sight that met me was a dead, putrefying pig lying inside among live pigs in a box. It was really one big mess, a head was left but the rest was smeared with bones that stuck out and organs squeezed out when the other pigs walked on it.

I remembered that along the inside of the box was a pig completely apathetic and she could not even notice that I was there. The stench from the corpses was so terrible, it pervaded everything. I remember that I was thinking, “This is what people are eating. Hams and sausage and pork chops. This is what it is.”

The Animal Rights Alliance has now reported to police the visited farms for violations of the animal protection law. On all farms were deficiencies in animal husbandry, animal care and animal health. Some of the farms had not been visited by an animal welfare inspector in several years while others had unannounced visits recently.

During the inspections the farms were showing their best side. But how will the animals fare the rest of the time? An inspection report describes: “Well managed farms with plenty of litter.”

But the Animal Rights Alliance investigation has shown you the reality behind the scenes. The rescue of these animals lies not in improved animal protection laws, or better control. What remains now is to take a stand and save lives.

During these two years that I have been out filming, I have visited a lot of farms and have seen thousands of pigs. And when one walks in the aisle, it may be difficult to grasp that all of the pigs here are individuals. However, it is exactly what they are. Pigs are extremely social and incredibly curious animals.

But I have a big lump in my stomach when I think that all of those pigs I met are dead now. And this just continues to happen. The only thing we can do to stop this cruelty to animals is to stop eating meat.

For more information about the campaign and how you can help the pigs visit www.ettlivsomgris.se

We salute the Animal Rights Alliance for producing “Life as a Pig” and for their gallantry and dedication to ending factory farming and the abuse of our vulnerable fellow beings. Please be a true hero and join the growing global movement to save the lives of the billions of pigs and other animals that are slaughtered annually to produce animal products by adopting the healthful, compassionate organic vegan lifestyle. May we always treat our animal brothers and sisters as equals.

For more details on the Animal Rights Alliance, please visit www.Djurrattsalliansen.se

Thank you for joining us for this edition of the Stop Animal Cruelty series on Supreme Master Television. Next is Enlightening Entertainment, after Noteworthy News. May Heaven bless all beings with peaceful and joyous lives.