At this point most of you are wondering what these pigs are used for. Most pigs with porcine stress syndrome are being used to produce the idea market hog. What is a market hog? A market hog is a pig that weighs 200 to 280 pounds being five to eight months of age; these pigs are sold for slaughter. Most market hogs are shown at fairs or nationwide shows, producers are using pigs with PSS to help them get the idea market hog. The idea market hog has a lot of muscle and good structure, having these qualities in a pig will give you a winner when it comes to shows. A pig containing porcine stress syndrome gives you heaver muscled pigs then ones without. Doing research I also found out that a pig with PSS is known to eat less food per day, saving people thousands of dollars. So is having the idea market hog worth risking a pigs life? I think there isn’t a problem with using pigs with porcine stress syndrome as long as they a properly taken care of. I also believe that having heavier muscled pigs will give us better quality meat. On the other hand if a pig goes through stress it will decrease the quality of meat.
What environment is a pig put through before being slaughtered? Above I talked about how market hogs are used for shows, but now what happens to them after that? At most shows the winners are sold for thousands of dollars to business people involved in the meat industry. Once they are sold they go from being well taken care of to a poor environment. They get thrown in pens with several other pigs putting several stress situations upon them. Every sell there is at least 100 pigs sold every time, knowing this; they ship all these pigs in a trailer at the same time. Wouldn’t you be stressed if put in a situation like this? Knowing what a pigs has to go through after caring for these animals it disappoints me to know that they’re not better taken care of. Should slaughter houses take the time to care for the animals they will be feeding to us?
Here I provided a couple links about my topics:
That's a very interesting topic. I personally love animals and I almost never think about the source of my meat when I eat it, but I can imagine the kind of stress animals endure in the slaughter house. My question is that does a pig diagnosed PSS affect the health of humans if eaten? If not, then I don't see any reason why the people at the slaughter house should even care to take care of the animals (even though we believe they should.)
ReplyDeletei think that slaughter houses should take better care of the animals. because if they are less stressed then the produce better meat. and it should be in the best interest of the slaughterhouse to provide good quality meat. I'm still confused on how showing pigs is related to this topic. are the pigs shown first then slaughtered?
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