Humane Society video shows Wyoming farm workers abusing pigs

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Workers cursed at animals, kicked at their faces, punched them and one even bounced up and down on an animal’s broken leg during the time “Whitney Warrington” worked at Wyoming Premium Farms in Wheatland, Wyoming. And all the while, though, she was recording the abuse for the Humane Society to demonstrate the casual cruelty workers displayed to the animals they were charged with raising and bringing to slaughter.

The video isn’t just damaging for its portrayal of factory farming and gestational sow housing, in which pregnant pigs are confined to cages too small to turn around. The video also documents a variety of apparently individual abuses, including one worker hurling piglets into a wall to stun them, another pig left to suffer from prolapses for two weeks before slaughter and a third pig nudging the obviously-decayed corpses of her piglets on the factory farm floor.

CBS Denver reports that local officials are investigating the operation, which the Humane Society launched after receiving tips from a whistleblower about the workers’ behavior. Wyoming Premium Farms’ Doug DeRouchey issued a statement to CBS Denver, saying that some of the behavior depicted won’t be tolerated and lambasting “Warrington” for failing to bring it immediately to supervisors’ attention. It’s unclear from the video whether any of the workers seen berating and abusing animals are supervisors at the plant.

Tyson Foods, which the Humane Society claimed was supplied by Wyoming Premium Farms, denied the connection in a statement to CBS Denver, stating “Tyson Foods does not buy any of the hogs raised on this farm for our pork processing plants,” while admitting that a separate Tyson “hog buying business” does buy some of Wyoming Premium Farms’ older sows for resale.

Please exercise caution while watching the below video, first uploaded by the Humane Society of the United States on May 8, 2012, as it is extremely graphic and may disturb some viewers.

["Pig Who Is Represented On A White Background" on Shutterstock]