Thanks Viva

Pigs are so intelligent
So clean and how they care
For each other in their little lives
It must be hard to bear

The conditions in some farms
Where restrictions are in force
The gestation crates that maximise
The profits and the source

Of sows hard working mothers
where their movement is impaired
They lay around for all that time
Whilst we believe we have cared

They cannot turn around at all
They are stuck there like a mass
They have hearts and souls like you
Of course all this is crass

Its evil for the farmers
To take this course and go
Down the road to welfare standards
If you want to know

Driving costs down helps the farmer
Where corporate a corporate policy
Is ripping percentages out of welfare
But the public cannot see

All they want is cheap food
Fuck the pig who cares
As long as the meat is tasty
No one is splitting hairs

Its man un kind in practice
Maybe he’s against the wall
Costs are rising daily
He can easily fall

But the animals he uses
And abuses every day
Need care and need good welfare
And then business does pay

Viva got a tip off
A red tractor farm it appears
Was keeping piglets in battery cages
With The resultant tears

Poured out of onlookers
It was all above board so
They got their various accolades
And their business it did grow

Hiding behind inspections
They arrogantly declared
On their website
Truthfully nothing there was spared

“The highest welfare standards”
All happy and content
24 hour maternity care
With many looking spent

Piglets in wire cages
How can that be right
Some had fallen through the gaps
Abandoned for the night

The day in fact forever
However long that be
Shivering on a concrete deck
For anyone to see

But nobody was looking
They were left to rot
Some had died already
Ready for the pot

Imagine the frustration
Of a piglet in such stress
Lonely and wailing quietly
Alone in its own mess

Other pigs in the cages
Apparently had been crushed
They had died and still were laying there
Anything but flushed

About the welfare standards
Inspected seemingly
By people with eyes somewhere else
Than where they ought to be

Its hard to write these poems
And, not feel their pain
Its hard to get the fingers moving
Its really so much strain

The public seem contented
With not knowing and listening to
The farmers proudly telling them
Don’t worry what we do

Is love our little charges
Their lives mean everything
We push them into tiny cages
How the hell can that bring

8 piglets to euphoria
Only the farmers know
As they maximise their profits
And their bottom line does grow

Its all about accounting
Its all about the way
The minimum fucking standards
Where you can get away

With being on the bread line
With markets at your ear
Expecting palatial standards
But not around to hear

The piglets screaming quietly
Lying in their shit
Pigs are never dirty
Its us we are unfit

To really care for the animals
So many farms fall down
They are the way to profit
Though the voiceless they do drown

If it were not for the likes of VIVA
And others on the prowl
Every farm animal that is eaten
Would throw in the towel

They suffer so much these days
Its profit all the way
Its fighting for cheap prices
And the animals always pay

The tedium and ugliness
Of man un kind displayed
The indifference they are uninspired
Thats the great meat trade

Where life is so unlovely
Unfashionable unsmart
Husbandry has gone down hill
Nowadays theres no heart

Left, no soul to speak of
Its a tasteless industry
Its vulgar and its tawdry
As anyone can see

Contemptible behaviour
And systems out of hell
I tremble as i write this stuff
Flinching as I tell

Those of you who bother
To read now what I write
They are a band of heroes
Going bonkers every night

They bite the bars
They live in shit
They cry at night
There in the pit

Depravity is all around
But they must never make a sound

Just get on with what they get
Help the farmer clear his debt

Go to slaughter one by one
Never having seen the sun

Felt its warm rays on their backs
Knowing sadly they are the facts

Lost souls in a sea of doom
Left in cages without room

Sold to you who believes they were
Treated kindly it did not occur

To the consumer, their lives were lost
And only they had felt the cost

Man un kind and women too
What I have to say to you

Is living souls who become your food
You are truly being crude

Pigs are intelligent and don’t forget
Do not make them someones debt

Love them care for them keep them clean
Don’t make them feel like a machine

Poplar farm Humberside little red tractor scheme
Supplying pork to Morrisons
Still using gestation crates
Allowed by law but not by those with hearts and souls
And piglets kept in battery crates stacked 3 high
This maximising profit at the expense of the baby pigs
now under investigation from all sides
But proclaiming their innocence

We shall see how it pans out
And whether changes are a foot.