[ad_1]
Vets and farmers have made the “soul-destroying” move of carrying out abortion procedures on pigs because they have “run out of alternatives”.
It comes as many can no longer cope with the backlog of animals on farms.
A shortage of butchers means that meat processors have been taking around 25% fewer animals than contracted, leaving farmers facing impossible choices to avoid overcrowding and the consequent breach of welfare standards.
Sky News has seen exclusive survey data from the National Pig Association (NPA) that suggests 11% of farmers have already culled healthy pigs, with a further 10% saying they will need to do so within the next two weeks.
Officially only 16,000 such kills have been logged with the NPA, but this figure is based on self-reporting and is likely a gross underestimate, with the reality more likely thousands, possibly tens of thousands killed but not destined for the food chain a week.
Farmers, vets and the industry alike have said what’s currently happening is the worst culling of healthy animals in the history of UK pig farming, describing the situation as “sickening”, “unforgivable” and a situation caused by “human error”.
Farmers have been warning for many months that the labour shortage could result in culling if an intervention wasn’t taken, and many are taking extreme measures to find alternative accommodation for their pigs to avoid It.
“It’s now a common conversation that I’m having on a daily basis,” says Duncan Berkshire, a pig specialist vet with 17 years’ experience.
While he’s been consulting on culling animals for some time, he had to carry out abortion procedures for a client for the first time in the last few days.
“It’s soul-destroying, absolutely soul-destroying,” he said.
“I certainly didn’t come into the veterinary…
[ad_2]
Source : skynews
