Just over an hour North-East of Dublin, sits Brownlow Piggery. Owned by Andgar piggery proprietors Garry Tiss and Andrew Goss, Brownlow is an independently operating farrow to finish piggery, located across two sites on Angle Road on the outskirts of the small town of Brownlow.
In early August, investigators visited both units of the piggery, documenting the conditions they found within.
At the larger breeder unit, they found mother pigs, crammed into tiny farrowing cages, some lying alongside their stillborn piglets. Piglets were filmed struggling on the filthy ground or lying alongside the already dead and dying.
In other sheds, investigators came across sow stalls, which are used to confine mother pigs during their pregnancy. The Australian Pork industry pledged to phase out these archaic devices by 2017 yet, multiple investigations since have shown that they are still in widespread use.
At the grower unit just up the road, young pigs were filmed with injuries and illnesses from the filthy conditions and cramped conditions. Pigs would spend the last few months of their lives living in their own filth in crowded sheds infested with rats and mice until, at just 6-months-old, they would be sent to be killed.
At both units, deaths are common and, up a small, dirt track from the grower sheds, lies evidence of just how common.
Dug into the ground is a mass grave, the long piles of dirt behind it showing that it is just the latest of many. In it, lies the rotting bodies of pigs, sows and piglets, discarded along with empty food bags and other rubbish from the farms.
This is exactly what the lives of these pigs means to Andgar. They are worth nothing to them, but we know that they matter. That's why we will fight to share their stories until each and every piggery is shut down for good.
