In nature, baby pigs are born in nests of soft straw and leaves lovingly made by their mothers. Factory-farmed pigs come into the world on the concrete floor of a farrowing pen. Farrowing pens and gestation crates are metal cages so narrow--22 inches wide is standard--that the mother pig cannot stand up, roll over, or turn around. She spends her entire adult life lying on her side on hard cement, first in the gestation crate being artifically inseminated and waiting to give birth, then in the farrowing pen having her babies and nursing them. When one family of babies is ready to be weaned, she is taken back to the gestation crate, impregnated again, and the cycle starts anew. After eight pregnancies she is considered "spent" and sent to slaughter.
---The Great Compassion: Buddhism and Animal Rights---
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