Emergency killing sounds like an exception – like a form of mercy. But in German pig breeding farms, the killing of piglets is routine: happening millions of times, carried out methodically and brutally.
New footage published by Uncover reveals what it’s really about: efficiency. These are animals that don’t fit into the system – and are therefore killed.
Uncover publishes investigations to expose animal welfare violations in the livestock industry. Expertise for Animals has analyzed the footage – using veterinary expertise and with the goal of making the animals’ perspective visible.
In an in-depth YouTube interview, veterinarian Marietheres Reinke provides a clear, factual assessment of what the footage shows.
👉 Watch the interview now. You can activate English subtitles in the video.
The footage released by Uncover shows a brutal routine. Hidden cameras in several pig breeding facilities document how piglets are treated when they grow too slowly, are sick, or simply don’t fit the economic calculation.
The animals are killed using CO₂ or throat cuts – often without proper stunning. Bloody tables, screams of panic, bodies writhing for minutes: this is the reality behind the sanitized term emergency killing.
The CO₂ box, in which piglets slowly suffocate, is marketed in the animal industry as “modern” and “humane.” But as veterinarian Stephanie Kowalski explains, the gas causes severe breathing distress and panic in pigs:
“Inside the CO₂ chamber, piglets fight against the fear of suffocation and the panic induced by the gas. Until they lose consciousness, they show strong defensive reactions indicating severe suffering.”
The footage also reveals serious deficiencies in the way throat cuts are performed. Staff use inappropriate tools, fail to apply mandatory stunning, handle vulnerable animals roughly, and toss live piglets onto the ground. Time and again, it becomes clear: animals bleed to death while fully conscious.
Veterinarian Sophie-Madlin Langner from Expertise for Animals explains the consequences:
“Slamming piglets onto the floor is not a legally permitted stunning method. There is a high risk that the animals suffer a spinal fracture and are paralyzed, yet still fully conscious.”
Pigs are sentient beings – and they deserve our protection. We need people who pay attention. And organizations that rely on facts to make systemic suffering visible. That’s where we come in.
We work to ensure that knowledge about these practices doesn’t just circulate in expert circles – but reaches the places where political and social change can happen: within animal advocacy movements, in the media, in government agencies, and in public discourse.
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