Physical Harm

Killing Piglets by “Thumping”

Smashing piglets' skulls against concrete

Banned

in the UK but still continues.

Two

UK farms caught piglet thumping in the last year.

Four

of Cranswick’s workers fired but none are prosecuted.

What It Is

To make the biggest profits, the industry needs to rear as many large pigs as possible. So what happens to the piglets who are born just a little smaller or grow just a little slower? Feeding them is considered a waste of resources and so they are killed.

One method, which was banned in the UK in 2022, is piglet “thumping”, where the animals are swung by their back legs and their heads smashed into a concrete wall or floor. The industry prefers to call it “blunt force trauma”.

When Cranswick was exposed for illegal piglet thumping, they fired the workers responsible, launched a widescale audit, and soon after announced that piglet thumping had been stamped out. So, imagine their surprise when, the very next day, a Cranswick farm was filmed smashing piglets’ heads into concrete. Obviously, they fired the workers responsible and promised to stamp out piglet thumping…