Stop the Marketing, Selling and Ongoing Suffering of 'House Pigs'.

Dear David Heath

we the undersigned would like you to take action to prevent the marketing and selling of pigs as house pets.

Keeping pigs as house pets contravenes  the ‘Five Freedoms’ a legal  agreement endorsed by the Farm Animal Welfare Council, the RSPCA, Compassion in World Farming and Defra, to mention just a few.

 House pigs are marketed as an easy to keep pet which will live contentedly alongside other house pets such as dogs, cats, rabbits etc.  In some cases this has resulted in serious injury to the pig. By keeping pigs in this way they are:

·         Denied their natural diet to ensure full health and vigour; pigs should graze, root and forage for up to 18 hours of the day

·         Often kept singly denying them the right to company of their own kind; pigs are herd animals who need company of their own kind to thrive – no animal which is not a solitary species should be subjected to living without company of its own kind

·         Kept indoors and on small concrete areas denying them the right to root and forage (natural behaviour) often resulting in depression and aggression. Many of these pigs are kept in households with small children. Some of them are uncastrated males who suffer from sexual frustration at maturity and become depressed and aggressive.  An aggressive pig can easily cause fatal injury to a small child.

·         Denied their natural diet often leading to obesity, heart failure, early onset arthritis, painful joint and foot conditions and premature death. The inbreeding and ‘runt ‘ breeding involved in trying to breed a smaller animal has made conditions such as these all too common. Often the ‘novice ‘ livestock keepers keeping these animals are unaware of the suffering they are causing when feeding inappropriately.

Pigs are subject to Zoonotic diseases (a disease transmittable from pig to human or vice versa) thus endangering the families – particularly children – with whom they are living

House pigs are often purchased by those who are completely unfamiliar with the needs of livestock and the laws of keeping livestock. Waste food from the kitchen is often fed on a daily basis and cakes, sweets and other foods containing pork waste products is unwittingly fed to the pigs. This can lead to diseases such as Foot and Mouth disease.

Information given out by the breeders is insufficient and biased towards adapting pigs to these unsuitable conditions.

The result is an ever growing welfare problem for these pigs who are regularly dumped or offloaded into sanctuaries and livestock markets. The problem is growing and the sanctuaries are at bursting point and many are now refusing to take more pigs in.

I urge you to act to prevent the sale of pigs into homes where there is not sufficient outside space to keep livestock,

Thank you for your help and consideration in this matter,

Pigs are