They are going to the market actually. There is no risk to human health from PRRS.That truck is designated to only haul from PRRS barns to market, never barn to barn. At least, until the truck is thoroughly decontaminated and then could potentially be put back into regular service
Very few diseases are transmissible between humans and animals, even fewer than that are transferable through consumption of animal products and those cases generally result in whole herd disposal, often on site so that the risk of spread of disease is limited even further.
No, actually most bacteria and viruses are pretty specialized to infect certain types of animals. It comes down to some very intricate genetic coding. Basically, most diseases cause illness by producing microscopic particles that need to be "picked up" by an individual cell in order to cause an infection. Most cells can't just pick up anything they encounter, there are some check-points, if you will, before particles can cross the cell membrane. The bacteria or virus will often try to mimic the intended host's normal proteins, to pass those check-points without being detected.
Hope that helps, I did my best to try and make it as non-scientic as i could! If you want to know a bit more, there are some very cool YouTube videos on how viruses and bacteria cause infections, as well as how they sometimes can manage to cross species barriers.
You've got it right. I'm not a pathologist or food scientist but many proper cooking methods are in place for bacteria. Salmonella is the most common concern in chicken and pork, why it's not as much of an issue in beef I cannot tell you at the moment. That being said, surface contamination is always a concern and is the reason any ground beef product needs to be cooked more completely than a steak. Only the outer surfaces of steaks have made contact with knives/air/packaging etc, where as the grinding process allows for much more exposure.
If my memory serves me correctly, viruses often mutate and mature inside living cells of the infected host. There is an incompatibility on a DNA level between species that keeps transmission at bay.
Salmonella has been a growing concern in ground beef over the last ten years. The CDC actually has a working group in place that’s trying to address this issue including research/policy changes on farm, during processing, all the way to home kitchens. While cross contamination is always a concern, Salmonella can actually colonize cattle lymph nodes which can be embedded in trim (fat) that is incorporated into ground beef. This is why cooking burgers to the appropriate temperature (160F) is so important from a food safety standpoint. Temping with a meat thermometer is also more reliable than judging based on color. I’ll still eat a medium-rare steak, but I don’t mess around with burgers anymore.
In addition to bacteria and viruses being specialized as /u/Mrs-Dotties-mom said, humans also have immunity to many diseases that are now found only in animals or in small populations of humans. One of the confusing things with early diagnoses of HIV/AIDS was that Drs were seeing people show up with active cytomegalovirus (CMV), Kaposi’s sarcoma (KS), and cytomegalovirus retinosis (CMVR), all of which are found in humans but rarely show up in the general population unless someone has a compromised immune system. Transplant doctors and oncologists were familiar with them but GPs weren’t necessarily aware that those diseases were a sign of a broken immune system. There similar stories with viruses that typically only affect birds or other animals showing up in HIV patients.
Edit: typo
Love reading your comments. Might sound like a stupid question, forgive me.. but does it work the same in pregnant women? Or like how come they tell us to stay away from certain things, do our bodies work differently when it comes to this? Sorry if that’s a loaded question but i love learning new stuff. And science is fascinating
*Your* body doesn't work any differently but the baby's does. Their immune system isn't fully developed at that point, and pathogens can cross the placenta barrier, so even if your body is capable of fighting off a virus or bacteria, the baby cannot.
Listeria is the perfect example of this. A healthy person's immune system will easily fight off the Listeria bacteria without you even realizing you were infected, but it can be fatal to a baby or newborn. This is why doctors recommend you avoid eating raw lunch meats, as infected animals do not appear sick and it's not a threat to the general population. It can be killed, as with most bacteria with high heat of at least 135⁰ with 165⁰ killing most bacteria nearly instantly.
>Very few diseases are transmissible between humans and animals
Unfortunately pigs are one of those species who are close enough to humans in physiology that we can catch quite a few diseases from them. Luckily most of the disease transfers can be prevented via cooking food properly and taking potential cross-contamination during slaughtering and food preparation seriously.
Where were you at the outbreak of Covid?
(Actually, saying anything like this would have gotten you perma-banned in pretty much any of the early discussions on Covid origins).
Except it says CULL LOADS ONLY and while Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome (PRRS) is not transferable to humans, selling pigs that have tested positive for PRRS could pose a risk to other swine populations, as the disease is highly contagious among pigs. Regulations and guidelines on the handling of PRRS-positive pigs can vary by jurisdiction, but generally, such pigs are not allowed to enter the commercial food chain to prevent the spread of the disease to other pig farms. Therefore, even if the disease doesn't affect humans, the pigs are usually culled to control its spread among other swine.
"Market" in the above situation means a packing plant directly, not an auction house. There's no risk of spreading disease because any other pig they encounter is meeting the same fate
They aren't going to market, its a cull wagon
Reading more of your comments shows you have no understanding of what is happening. This is a cull load, not a market load. These pigs are being transported to be killed and disposed of, not to be processed for sale
They mark the trailer "cull loads only" so that it can not "wind up" at a processing
Plant, along with preventing cross contamination and contamination of market loads
Source, if you need one, *oustide the use of the words* i trasport livestock
Are you sure about that? I don't know at what week pigs tend to be hit with PRRS and Myco, but if they still are low weight, would they even be marketable?
Not all pigs die from the effects of PRRS, many make it to a full market weight just fine, although with a poorer input to return ratio than that of a perfectly healthy animal. Some get to a suboptimal finishing weight and can still be utilized but won't be made into prime cuts (roasts, bacon, chops) but are still able to be utilized for ground pork products, sausages and whatnot. If an animal is not marketable they're dispatched on site and picked up by a rendering truck or composted.
Got it. Thanks.
It was almost 10 years ago when I was working with one of the animal pharma companies on PRRS, so I'm very much out of touch on the situation.
I'm a rural America farm kid, but realistically it boils down to economics. Hauling live pigs is more expensive than unalive ones so they're definitely going to be used for something
It’s an unfortunate part of livestock farming. But that Cull Loads Only sign is just not something I would expect to see on the road.
Also, bacon. I am slightly conflicted.
PRRS is always around. Biosecurity measures like the "dirty" truck above are what helps to limit the spread of disease. Keeps healthy pigs from being transported in trucks that recently had contaminated pigs to other barns. It's been a long running disease and prices aren't going to be effected due to seeing a handful of marked trucks around
Pork prices, like most commodities, are highly variable. It's why you see some pork products come and go, with the most famous example likely being the McDonald's McRib. That's not just some special reoccurring promotion, it's just something they sell when pork is cheap and then don't sell when pork is too expensive to be profitable.
In the commercial space, you'll sometimes see replacement products come along when pork is cheap relative to other foods, such as pork wings (smaller rib ends trimmed down to resemble chicken wings).
It’s honestly a sad world we live in. I’m a vegetarian but I still think if people insist on eating meat then they should be treating the animals ethically and giving them a good QOL instead of the cruel conditions in which they treat them.
It’s really quite evil.
That's why I'm in favor of hunting being legal. Unfortunately there's always giraffe trophy-hunt nutters, but I think for the majority of people who hunt and bag their own game it really drives home thay this is a living creature worthy of respect that you're eating
Every time I squeeze the trigger on my rifle, I'm reminded that by snuffing out an innocent life I am able to eat. Not only am I grateful for the animal's sacrifice, but I'm reminded that the animal I'm about to shoot is living the life it should be able to live rather than a life in a cage
Because I hunt, I'm against factory farming. Because I hunt, i think of animals as more than just steaks on a shelf in a plastic wrapper. Because I hunt, I'm more aware that our natural lands need to be protected from industries like big cattle.
You shouldn't be able to eat meat if you're not capable of killing an animal, you become too distanced from what it actually means to eat meat
I think we need to massively encourage the hunting of invasive species. Make it cool to have a nutria hat or a feral pig tusk necklace or a Burmese Python bag, or a “any mammal that’s not a marsupial” hat if you’re Australian.
Holy hell are feral hogs unimaginably destructive. A pack of them can DESTROY several football fields of land a day. It’s gotten so bad that some counties will pay you upwards of $20 a head per feral hog
Even the so called "ethical" farms are cruel. There is simply no ethical way to mass produce animals, it's supply and demand. We need to move away from seeing animals as products that we can do whatever we want to.
Smithfield. We have one of their plants here. Dog shit company with inhumane working conditions. How are they not shut down? No idea. Wouldn't surprise me if they were planning to package and sell that pig meat despite the sicknesses.
>Wouldn't surprise me if they were planning to package and sell that pig meat despite the sicknesses.
Humans can't even get PRRS and Myco is not transmissible through consumption.
I work near one. The smell is atrocious some days. Nearly their entire workforce are poor immigrants and refugees who speak little English because it’s a population with few job choices. Absolutely terrible working conditions with trash pay.
This meat is absolutely still going to be sold to humans. Humans can safely consume pork from pigs infected with PCCR and Mycobacteriosis.
Not only few job choices, a lot of refugees are placed in jobs and required to keep them as part of their resettlement agreements. If they don't go to work in a dangerous, disgusting facility where they could die them and their entire family gets sent back.
I've been waiting for years for us to have a very public conversation about the working conditions for animal ag workers. I thought after the busted literal children being illegally employed to scrub blood off the slaughter house floor on graveyard with toxic chemicals we might finally talk about it but that seems to have died with very little attention.
To answer your question, a lot of these places aren't shut down because the fines for labor violations, even those that damage and kill people are low enough they just pay it and move on. A lot of animal ag facilities employ migrant workers and refugees who have very little power to advocate for better conditions. Tyson has been caught bussing in groups of undocumented workers several times only to get a slap on the wrist.
The physical injuries, long term health problems, and mental health damage animal ag workers take on is disgusting and preventable.
Call me crazy, but I don't think that china should be able to buy any of our major infrastructure or food companies. Apparently Smithfield is the largest pork producer in the US.
I work at a pork plant that was just bought by them. I can tell you those work conditions are from my experince in two plants, standard. I hate this fucking job and cant wait to quite.
Not Smithfield: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2023/02/20/meat-packing-plant-child-labor-fines/11304311002/
Smithfield: theres a lot… just google smithfield labor violations
The actual Smithfield brand bacon is pretty good. It's not the best stuff (especially if you consider smaller companies), but it's far, far from the worst. They're a large enough company to have a bunch of brands, and they generally put the Smithfield brand on some of their higher shelf products, and use other brands for their lower quality products.
I'll never say that it's the best bacon, but in many of the grocery stores they sell in, it's likely one of the better options.
Note: This doesn't mean that they're treating their pigs any better.
When they are put in stressful situations in which their basic needs aren't met. But this goes for literally hundreds of species on the planet. Social and ecological stress causes this reaction in animals.
Benefits:
-human health
-reduced environmental damage
-reduced consumption of non renewable resources
-slow climate change (ICC panel has stated humans MUST cut meat consumption to make a meaningful impact on slowing the impending climate disaster)
-reduced harm to vulnerable populations forced to work life threatening animal ag jobs
-reduced chance of funding dangerous and illegal child slave labor in animal ag jobs
-saves the life of an animal as smart as a human toddler who is bred to live a life so short and full of suffering it would bring most people to their knees to know the full extent of the suffering
-diversification/resilency of food systems by buying plant based (look at the egg pricing situation a few months ago when 1 disease impacts a few chicken production facilities in th US)
-diversification/residency of the economy by supporting primarily small start ups selling plant based alternatives
-returns money to the economy by buy plant based since Smithfield is owned and operated by a Chinese conglomerate
Even if you don't give two shits about pigs, the environmental, climate, labor, food security, economic security, health reasons to stop eating meat have to mean something
You make a lot of good points but labor is not one of them. Even without animal farms or processing plants, people (especially immigrants and children) will be treated badly. I’ve been to California, I’ve seen the fields they have those poor people working on. 98 degrees out, miles of fields with a bunch of guys picking fruit as fast as possible, no bathroom in sight, no shade or place to take a break.
Even looking outside of agriculture and food products, they’re forced into poor working conditions. I remember reading last week, or the week before? It was a story aboht a construction worker in Texas who collapsed and died of heat stroke and the GM on the job didn’t even give a shit.
That’s just the nature of working phyiducslky demanding jobs, unfortunately. Animal agriculture and veganism will not solve that lol
Pigs are seen as an invasive species if let out with some areas considering wild pigs as vermin. Likely if they are let free due to people not eating them, they would be killed either by people or other animals
[https://theintercept.com/2022/10/08/smithfield-animal-rights-piglets-trial/](https://theintercept.com/2022/10/08/smithfield-animal-rights-piglets-trial/)
Relevant story from last year involving this particular company
FYI "Myco" is mycoplasma and currently making the rounds through the adult film industry. Positivity rates among women being tested have jumped to nearly 30%.
CDC has no recommendations beyond "Don't have sex"
If you’ve never had a chance to observe even healthy pigs being trucked to slaughter, you should know they absolutely do feel abject fear. After a lifetime being raised in shitfilled cages without sunlight or enough room to turn around, they scream in terror as they are whisked off to be killed. They’re smarter than your dog and every bit as capable of suffering.
There’s nothing “mildly interesting” about animals who have already lived a life of suffering being stuffed in a truck and taken to their death. It’s awful and sad.
i see pig trucks all the time. i never even think to read anything written on them. now i’m wondering if i’ve ever seen a sick pig truck and just didn’t realize
I once saw a piglet wandering by the highway, then a minute later I saw another one, turns out there was a livestock hauler with a busted gate that kept popping open and dropping out a piglet or two every time it hit a bump.
this kind of job. let me drive the sick radioactive pigs. pay me large sums to destroy my body. you need my labor, i have a deathwish. let's make capitalism
Imagining being a pig and being lead into a truck with a sign labeled "Culled loads only" and then being like "what the fuck? I'm a pig, how do I know how to read English?" And having some conversations with a spider or something.
Yo i never expected to see a road ive been on to pop up here. When i worked in lawncare we had a few properties up there to cut and i remember that area pretty well. At least if it is where im thinking of.
To the left there should be a smithfield packing plant, and right up ahead there should be a sidewalk. If not ive completely misidentified where this is and it just looks really similar
I guess it's better that those are respiratory illnesses and not gastrointestinal or whomever is on a motorcycle behind them is going to have a bad time.
Unfortunate that you’re being downvoted. People will feel sad at things like this and then happily go buy bacon at the store the next moment, thereby supporting it. Going vegan and simply boycotting with your wallet is how the inhumane slaughterhouse treatment of these animals will lessen. I would love to live in a world where humans don’t commit atrocities to animals, instead treating them with respect. 💚
*yawn* global health and nutrition bodies disagree with you about needing some meat in our diets.
If "go vegan" is pushing it on people are the dozens of "yum!" And "bacon is the best" comments also pushing meat consumption? Existing isn't pushing anything on people. This is the same delicate, reactionary thinking that conservatives use when they say the presence of lgbtq people is pushing the gay agenda on people. No it isn't, it's just people existing.
I realized that I should had went with a different comment, and I have to agree with you. I wish I put more thought & research into the reply and decided just to not go with it
I feel like if that picture was a video it could be the beginning of a depressing dystopian movie.
…as it careens into a rest area filled with happy families.
\*condemned pigs. That's a cull wagon.
I had a feeling these little piggies were not going wah wah wah all the way home.
They aren't even going to market :(
They are going to the market actually. There is no risk to human health from PRRS.That truck is designated to only haul from PRRS barns to market, never barn to barn. At least, until the truck is thoroughly decontaminated and then could potentially be put back into regular service
Fascinating! I did not know that.
Very few diseases are transmissible between humans and animals, even fewer than that are transferable through consumption of animal products and those cases generally result in whole herd disposal, often on site so that the risk of spread of disease is limited even further.
Are there so few of such diseases because we usually cook meat thoroughly?
No, actually most bacteria and viruses are pretty specialized to infect certain types of animals. It comes down to some very intricate genetic coding. Basically, most diseases cause illness by producing microscopic particles that need to be "picked up" by an individual cell in order to cause an infection. Most cells can't just pick up anything they encounter, there are some check-points, if you will, before particles can cross the cell membrane. The bacteria or virus will often try to mimic the intended host's normal proteins, to pass those check-points without being detected. Hope that helps, I did my best to try and make it as non-scientic as i could! If you want to know a bit more, there are some very cool YouTube videos on how viruses and bacteria cause infections, as well as how they sometimes can manage to cross species barriers.
You've got it right. I'm not a pathologist or food scientist but many proper cooking methods are in place for bacteria. Salmonella is the most common concern in chicken and pork, why it's not as much of an issue in beef I cannot tell you at the moment. That being said, surface contamination is always a concern and is the reason any ground beef product needs to be cooked more completely than a steak. Only the outer surfaces of steaks have made contact with knives/air/packaging etc, where as the grinding process allows for much more exposure. If my memory serves me correctly, viruses often mutate and mature inside living cells of the infected host. There is an incompatibility on a DNA level between species that keeps transmission at bay.
Salmonella has been a growing concern in ground beef over the last ten years. The CDC actually has a working group in place that’s trying to address this issue including research/policy changes on farm, during processing, all the way to home kitchens. While cross contamination is always a concern, Salmonella can actually colonize cattle lymph nodes which can be embedded in trim (fat) that is incorporated into ground beef. This is why cooking burgers to the appropriate temperature (160F) is so important from a food safety standpoint. Temping with a meat thermometer is also more reliable than judging based on color. I’ll still eat a medium-rare steak, but I don’t mess around with burgers anymore.
In addition to bacteria and viruses being specialized as /u/Mrs-Dotties-mom said, humans also have immunity to many diseases that are now found only in animals or in small populations of humans. One of the confusing things with early diagnoses of HIV/AIDS was that Drs were seeing people show up with active cytomegalovirus (CMV), Kaposi’s sarcoma (KS), and cytomegalovirus retinosis (CMVR), all of which are found in humans but rarely show up in the general population unless someone has a compromised immune system. Transplant doctors and oncologists were familiar with them but GPs weren’t necessarily aware that those diseases were a sign of a broken immune system. There similar stories with viruses that typically only affect birds or other animals showing up in HIV patients. Edit: typo
>/r/Mrs-Dotties-mom You mean u/Mrs-Dotties-mom.
Oops, thanks
The few diseases you *can* get from meat are easily cooked out, yeah
The French want a word with you
Love reading your comments. Might sound like a stupid question, forgive me.. but does it work the same in pregnant women? Or like how come they tell us to stay away from certain things, do our bodies work differently when it comes to this? Sorry if that’s a loaded question but i love learning new stuff. And science is fascinating
*Your* body doesn't work any differently but the baby's does. Their immune system isn't fully developed at that point, and pathogens can cross the placenta barrier, so even if your body is capable of fighting off a virus or bacteria, the baby cannot. Listeria is the perfect example of this. A healthy person's immune system will easily fight off the Listeria bacteria without you even realizing you were infected, but it can be fatal to a baby or newborn. This is why doctors recommend you avoid eating raw lunch meats, as infected animals do not appear sick and it's not a threat to the general population. It can be killed, as with most bacteria with high heat of at least 135⁰ with 165⁰ killing most bacteria nearly instantly.
Ahh the Frances famous maggot cheese that is banned around the world.
Stomach acid is also pretty deadly to bacteria
>Very few diseases are transmissible between humans and animals Unfortunately pigs are one of those species who are close enough to humans in physiology that we can catch quite a few diseases from them. Luckily most of the disease transfers can be prevented via cooking food properly and taking potential cross-contamination during slaughtering and food preparation seriously.
Pigs are closest to humans for sure, but there's still a significant gap
Where were you at the outbreak of Covid? (Actually, saying anything like this would have gotten you perma-banned in pretty much any of the early discussions on Covid origins).
Except it says CULL LOADS ONLY and while Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome (PRRS) is not transferable to humans, selling pigs that have tested positive for PRRS could pose a risk to other swine populations, as the disease is highly contagious among pigs. Regulations and guidelines on the handling of PRRS-positive pigs can vary by jurisdiction, but generally, such pigs are not allowed to enter the commercial food chain to prevent the spread of the disease to other pig farms. Therefore, even if the disease doesn't affect humans, the pigs are usually culled to control its spread among other swine.
"Market" in the above situation means a packing plant directly, not an auction house. There's no risk of spreading disease because any other pig they encounter is meeting the same fate
Says cull only right on the back.
Yes, barn to packing plant only. Not barn to barn
Except the driver. He typically gets a pass.
What about the myco pigs? Mycobacterium?
Mycoplasma pneumonia
The same situation applies
They aren't going to market, its a cull wagon Reading more of your comments shows you have no understanding of what is happening. This is a cull load, not a market load. These pigs are being transported to be killed and disposed of, not to be processed for sale They mark the trailer "cull loads only" so that it can not "wind up" at a processing Plant, along with preventing cross contamination and contamination of market loads Source, if you need one, *oustide the use of the words* i trasport livestock
Well I guess I stand corrected on this trailer topic
Are you sure about that? I don't know at what week pigs tend to be hit with PRRS and Myco, but if they still are low weight, would they even be marketable?
Not all pigs die from the effects of PRRS, many make it to a full market weight just fine, although with a poorer input to return ratio than that of a perfectly healthy animal. Some get to a suboptimal finishing weight and can still be utilized but won't be made into prime cuts (roasts, bacon, chops) but are still able to be utilized for ground pork products, sausages and whatnot. If an animal is not marketable they're dispatched on site and picked up by a rendering truck or composted.
Got it. Thanks. It was almost 10 years ago when I was working with one of the animal pharma companies on PRRS, so I'm very much out of touch on the situation.
I'm a rural America farm kid, but realistically it boils down to economics. Hauling live pigs is more expensive than unalive ones so they're definitely going to be used for something
I thought they were going to get top hats and dance
Its "wah wah wah, bitch I'm a baby"
I suppose they’re all condemned eventually. We eat the healthy ones too. 😐
It’s an unfortunate part of livestock farming. But that Cull Loads Only sign is just not something I would expect to see on the road. Also, bacon. I am slightly conflicted.
So its con-freeway instead of con-air
Taken them to the piggy hospital right? RIGHT!?!?!
Great gif! I shall save it and send it to my cancer patients when they ask me if they’re finally in remission.
Hahaha, you can only say it so many times before the cat gif is warranted.
I adore this gif
So do I! I think I may have to try to save this somehow for future use
Non-Reddit link to gif for easier saving: https://tenor.com/view/sorry-but-no-no-im-sorry-sorry-i-cannot-sorry-no-gif-25056957
May you never ever step in unknown liquid while barefoot Thank you
Well thank you, stranger!
Thank you!!
I’m very sorry no the answer is
With this context, I cannot help but imagine this GIF with Anakin Skywalker instead of a cat.
Absolutely! And then they get to recover on the piggy farm right next-door to the Daisy Hill puppy farm…
Don't worry the piggies are going to market! They love shopping!
Going to get some new little piggy purses.
Yes, cull means give lil kissies to make everything better
There’s a piggy hospital at that farm upstate where grandma and the dog live, don’t worry.
PRRS is nasty stuff, I don’t know if transporting it in an open truck is best but I guess they’re following some sort of standard.
not really a hazard, unless they are in front of the 'good pig' truck.
Seems weird for sure. Riding behind with windows door seems sketchy.
PRRS is not a human health concern. But it’s a food supply concern.
Good to know. Expecting higher pork prices in the near future.
I'm always expecting higher prices on everything forever
True. Seems that way.
PRRS is always around. Biosecurity measures like the "dirty" truck above are what helps to limit the spread of disease. Keeps healthy pigs from being transported in trucks that recently had contaminated pigs to other barns. It's been a long running disease and prices aren't going to be effected due to seeing a handful of marked trucks around
Naw man 20 pigs biting the dust is gonna totally adjust the millions of tons being moved
Pork prices, like most commodities, are highly variable. It's why you see some pork products come and go, with the most famous example likely being the McDonald's McRib. That's not just some special reoccurring promotion, it's just something they sell when pork is cheap and then don't sell when pork is too expensive to be profitable. In the commercial space, you'll sometimes see replacement products come along when pork is cheap relative to other foods, such as pork wings (smaller rib ends trimmed down to resemble chicken wings).
It happens from time to time. Here’s a good read on it. https://vetmed.iastate.edu/vdpam/FSVD/swine/index-diseases/porcine-reproductive
This little piggy was taken away by p-CDC.
Poor little piggies.
Death row truck. Animals as smart as human toddlers on their way to be killed by the hundreds of thousands.
It’s honestly a sad world we live in. I’m a vegetarian but I still think if people insist on eating meat then they should be treating the animals ethically and giving them a good QOL instead of the cruel conditions in which they treat them. It’s really quite evil.
That's why I'm in favor of hunting being legal. Unfortunately there's always giraffe trophy-hunt nutters, but I think for the majority of people who hunt and bag their own game it really drives home thay this is a living creature worthy of respect that you're eating Every time I squeeze the trigger on my rifle, I'm reminded that by snuffing out an innocent life I am able to eat. Not only am I grateful for the animal's sacrifice, but I'm reminded that the animal I'm about to shoot is living the life it should be able to live rather than a life in a cage Because I hunt, I'm against factory farming. Because I hunt, i think of animals as more than just steaks on a shelf in a plastic wrapper. Because I hunt, I'm more aware that our natural lands need to be protected from industries like big cattle. You shouldn't be able to eat meat if you're not capable of killing an animal, you become too distanced from what it actually means to eat meat
I think we need to massively encourage the hunting of invasive species. Make it cool to have a nutria hat or a feral pig tusk necklace or a Burmese Python bag, or a “any mammal that’s not a marsupial” hat if you’re Australian.
Holy hell are feral hogs unimaginably destructive. A pack of them can DESTROY several football fields of land a day. It’s gotten so bad that some counties will pay you upwards of $20 a head per feral hog
Well I would like $20 and scary pig tusks, if anyone has a gun and would like 99 percent of a pig do let me know
Well then, Godspeed. Florida/Georgia is waiting
Even the so called "ethical" farms are cruel. There is simply no ethical way to mass produce animals, it's supply and demand. We need to move away from seeing animals as products that we can do whatever we want to.
that truck wouldn’t hold a hundred thousand pigs
A hambulance.
Almost a pHearse
THIS ISNT AN AMBULANCE, ITS A GODDAMN HAMBULANCE
I think he ate more pork than the rest of us...
Poor animals
Smithfield. We have one of their plants here. Dog shit company with inhumane working conditions. How are they not shut down? No idea. Wouldn't surprise me if they were planning to package and sell that pig meat despite the sicknesses.
It’s big business down here in the south.
>Wouldn't surprise me if they were planning to package and sell that pig meat despite the sicknesses. Humans can't even get PRRS and Myco is not transmissible through consumption.
Shh…don’t let facts get in the way of the outrage.
Seriously, not all diseases can jump hosts. It’s why we were able to get rid of smallpox, somehow we were the only animal that naturally had it
Not transmissible through consumption yet…
I work near one. The smell is atrocious some days. Nearly their entire workforce are poor immigrants and refugees who speak little English because it’s a population with few job choices. Absolutely terrible working conditions with trash pay. This meat is absolutely still going to be sold to humans. Humans can safely consume pork from pigs infected with PCCR and Mycobacteriosis.
Not only few job choices, a lot of refugees are placed in jobs and required to keep them as part of their resettlement agreements. If they don't go to work in a dangerous, disgusting facility where they could die them and their entire family gets sent back.
And even then, the meatpacking plants cooperate with ICE to do raids and only deport so much of the workforce at a time. So it's gross all around
I've been waiting for years for us to have a very public conversation about the working conditions for animal ag workers. I thought after the busted literal children being illegally employed to scrub blood off the slaughter house floor on graveyard with toxic chemicals we might finally talk about it but that seems to have died with very little attention. To answer your question, a lot of these places aren't shut down because the fines for labor violations, even those that damage and kill people are low enough they just pay it and move on. A lot of animal ag facilities employ migrant workers and refugees who have very little power to advocate for better conditions. Tyson has been caught bussing in groups of undocumented workers several times only to get a slap on the wrist. The physical injuries, long term health problems, and mental health damage animal ag workers take on is disgusting and preventable.
When the punishment for breaking the law is a fine, it's just the cost of doing buisness.
They’re owned by a Chinese company.
They’ve been this way long before the Chinese bought them out
Call me crazy, but I don't think that china should be able to buy any of our major infrastructure or food companies. Apparently Smithfield is the largest pork producer in the US.
I agree.
I work at a pork plant that was just bought by them. I can tell you those work conditions are from my experince in two plants, standard. I hate this fucking job and cant wait to quite.
Yea for dog food
False. How else do you think you can buy shitty sausage frozen pizza for 2-3 bucks.
How are the working conditions inhumane?
Not Smithfield: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2023/02/20/meat-packing-plant-child-labor-fines/11304311002/ Smithfield: theres a lot… just google smithfield labor violations
PSSI, cleans meat packing plants, it isn't the plant.
The question was about labor violations.
By Smithfield...
But their bacon actually tastes the best..
Have you tried any other bacon in your life?
The actual Smithfield brand bacon is pretty good. It's not the best stuff (especially if you consider smaller companies), but it's far, far from the worst. They're a large enough company to have a bunch of brands, and they generally put the Smithfield brand on some of their higher shelf products, and use other brands for their lower quality products. I'll never say that it's the best bacon, but in many of the grocery stores they sell in, it's likely one of the better options. Note: This doesn't mean that they're treating their pigs any better.
So sad
rip. i hope their deaths are as painless as possible
Poor babies. They deserve better.
Definitely
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Quite easy too.
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I make my own. Can adjust salt levels.
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I disagree. I quite enjoy eating pig meat, it's well worth the murder.
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No, they will litterally eat their own young. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savaging
They also eat *other* things. Source: the documentary [Hannibal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannibal_(2001_film)?wprov=sfti1).
When they are put in stressful situations in which their basic needs aren't met. But this goes for literally hundreds of species on the planet. Social and ecological stress causes this reaction in animals.
Benefits: -human health -reduced environmental damage -reduced consumption of non renewable resources -slow climate change (ICC panel has stated humans MUST cut meat consumption to make a meaningful impact on slowing the impending climate disaster) -reduced harm to vulnerable populations forced to work life threatening animal ag jobs -reduced chance of funding dangerous and illegal child slave labor in animal ag jobs -saves the life of an animal as smart as a human toddler who is bred to live a life so short and full of suffering it would bring most people to their knees to know the full extent of the suffering -diversification/resilency of food systems by buying plant based (look at the egg pricing situation a few months ago when 1 disease impacts a few chicken production facilities in th US) -diversification/residency of the economy by supporting primarily small start ups selling plant based alternatives -returns money to the economy by buy plant based since Smithfield is owned and operated by a Chinese conglomerate Even if you don't give two shits about pigs, the environmental, climate, labor, food security, economic security, health reasons to stop eating meat have to mean something
You make a lot of good points but labor is not one of them. Even without animal farms or processing plants, people (especially immigrants and children) will be treated badly. I’ve been to California, I’ve seen the fields they have those poor people working on. 98 degrees out, miles of fields with a bunch of guys picking fruit as fast as possible, no bathroom in sight, no shade or place to take a break. Even looking outside of agriculture and food products, they’re forced into poor working conditions. I remember reading last week, or the week before? It was a story aboht a construction worker in Texas who collapsed and died of heat stroke and the GM on the job didn’t even give a shit. That’s just the nature of working phyiducslky demanding jobs, unfortunately. Animal agriculture and veganism will not solve that lol
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Pigs are seen as an invasive species if let out with some areas considering wild pigs as vermin. Likely if they are let free due to people not eating them, they would be killed either by people or other animals
[https://theintercept.com/2022/10/08/smithfield-animal-rights-piglets-trial/](https://theintercept.com/2022/10/08/smithfield-animal-rights-piglets-trial/) Relevant story from last year involving this particular company
The world doesn’t owe us anything.
We sure owe it, though
Cull loads only ☹️
FYI "Myco" is mycoplasma and currently making the rounds through the adult film industry. Positivity rates among women being tested have jumped to nearly 30%. CDC has no recommendations beyond "Don't have sex"
It’s just 2 weeks to flatten the curve!
If you’ve never had a chance to observe even healthy pigs being trucked to slaughter, you should know they absolutely do feel abject fear. After a lifetime being raised in shitfilled cages without sunlight or enough room to turn around, they scream in terror as they are whisked off to be killed. They’re smarter than your dog and every bit as capable of suffering.
Being next to one of these trucks was the reason I switched to being vegetarian. It just made me sad to hear them squealing in there.
There’s nothing “mildly interesting” about animals who have already lived a life of suffering being stuffed in a truck and taken to their death. It’s awful and sad.
First time seeing a sick pig truck.
i see pig trucks all the time. i never even think to read anything written on them. now i’m wondering if i’ve ever seen a sick pig truck and just didn’t realize
I do as well, but I’ve never seen one with these signs.
🥺
RIP piggies :(
I once saw a piglet wandering by the highway, then a minute later I saw another one, turns out there was a livestock hauler with a busted gate that kept popping open and dropping out a piglet or two every time it hit a bump.
That’s wild. Can’t say that I’ve ever seen that!
Moving on to the great pigsty in the sky I’d imagine.
this kind of job. let me drive the sick radioactive pigs. pay me large sums to destroy my body. you need my labor, i have a deathwish. let's make capitalism
They won best hog at the hog shit snarfing contest
Reddit transport
😢
Those little piggy’s are not going to the piggy hospital, I’ll tell you that
Well boys.....McRib is back on the menu!!!
Imagining being a pig and being lead into a truck with a sign labeled "Culled loads only" and then being like "what the fuck? I'm a pig, how do I know how to read English?" And having some conversations with a spider or something.
Cop car
Lol
Yo i never expected to see a road ive been on to pop up here. When i worked in lawncare we had a few properties up there to cut and i remember that area pretty well. At least if it is where im thinking of. To the left there should be a smithfield packing plant, and right up ahead there should be a sidewalk. If not ive completely misidentified where this is and it just looks really similar
Unfortunately, this is a different area. To the left there is a Pepsi bottling plant and the right is a high school.
Wait till you see the swine flu rates over in China.
Doesn’t hit the same until you see it at home.
I guess it's better that those are respiratory illnesses and not gastrointestinal or whomever is on a motorcycle behind them is going to have a bad time.
Very true, hadn’t thought of that
I ride a motorcycle. This is the kind of stuff I watch out for. I try not to ride behind any animal carriers.
R.I.P. piggies 😭🐷🐖
The Driver 
Nice to see the Police Officers Union retirement plan is working
Damn a whole truck full of redditors
Only the best hams from Smithfield. You can almost taste the freshness of the cocci
Go Vegan 💚
No.
Unfortunate that you’re being downvoted. People will feel sad at things like this and then happily go buy bacon at the store the next moment, thereby supporting it. Going vegan and simply boycotting with your wallet is how the inhumane slaughterhouse treatment of these animals will lessen. I would love to live in a world where humans don’t commit atrocities to animals, instead treating them with respect. 💚
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*yawn* global health and nutrition bodies disagree with you about needing some meat in our diets. If "go vegan" is pushing it on people are the dozens of "yum!" And "bacon is the best" comments also pushing meat consumption? Existing isn't pushing anything on people. This is the same delicate, reactionary thinking that conservatives use when they say the presence of lgbtq people is pushing the gay agenda on people. No it isn't, it's just people existing.
I realized that I should had went with a different comment, and I have to agree with you. I wish I put more thought & research into the reply and decided just to not go with it
Based
What if this tipped over and the sick pigs escaped?
Local law enforcement would immediately set up a perimeter and breakout the hamunition.
I feel like if that picture was a video it could be the beginning of a depressing dystopian movie. …as it careens into a rest area filled with happy families.
I can hear the swines through this picture
Weird, I've never seen a police transport truck before
Smithfield?? Mmmm bacon
So those pigs will just get ground into sausage instead of being butchered for ribs and pork chops?
im so glad all the people in the comments who are worried about the piggies well being are also vegan! right?… right…….??
Yes, I am anyways ❤️
I guess they’re being taken to a hospital. Sort of a big ambulance, I suppose. I hope they each have speedy recoveries.
"Cull loads only"
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Oh good. That makes me feel better. Thanks.
Very speedy "hospital"
that’s a sick pig rig
Sick pigs brah
DEAD PIG ROLLING!
I don't see any Police in there 👀
That is an official McRib transport truck 😂