Hazards in a pig’s life

Press, 3 September 1977, Page 2

Hazards in a pig’s life

If you work in a hospital or hotel kitchen, from which the wastes are used for feeding pigs, be careful what you throw in the rubbish bins. “We would soon complain if we had a meal dished up with a cigarette butt among the cabbage,’’ said Mr E. F. Owen, a livestock offcer in the Animal Health Division of the Ministry of Agriculture in Christchurch yesterday. “Unfortunately pigs are somewhat different from us. They cannot complain. They just suffer

in silence,” he said. Mr Owen said that garbage swill was collected from restaurants, motels, and hospitals by pig farmers who were licensed to feed garbage. This material was naturally variable, but it was a valuable food. However, from time to time it might contain such things as tea leaves, tobacco, the leaves of rhubarb, broken glass, metal cutlery, articles made from plastics, plastic wrapping material, and also salt. Salt was very toxic if

ingested in uncontrolled quantities, but the other items could also be very harmful to pigs. Mr J. H. Smedley of Dyers Road, Bromley, who has ’been collecting garbage for feeding to pigs for the last 25 years, said yesterday that the institutions from which he collected were “prettygood” in ensuring that foreign materials did not find their way into the garbage. It was generally only when new staff was employed that there was trouble.

But he has had problems in the past, and keeps an eye on the garbage coming in to his piggery for harmful items. Three things he does not like are broken glass, bottle tops, and tea leaves. He has lost pigs from broken glass. He says that they have bled internally after they have swallowed it, and it has cut them. Mr Smedley has also lost pigs through choking on beer bottle tops, and says that if there are a lot of tea leaves they are inclined to block the inestines.

He recalls a rather painful- experience of one of his pigs. At feeding time he noticed that there was something wrong with it. A round top cut out of a tin with a tin-opener had become lodged in the animal’s mouth. It could neither open nor close its mouth, was unable to feed, and was hungry and screaming out. Mr Smedley said he found it painful removing the offending can top with pliers. He has also known plastic bags to pass right through the pigs. He is not very happy about them, either, and picks them out if he sees them. He also removes cigarette butts from the garbage when he sees them, and Ikes to keep rhubarb leaves and potato tops out of the mixture. Two knives were lying on the edge of a vat, in which Mr Smedley boils the garbage before feeding, when a reporter called on him yesterday. But he says that although the pigs play with knives, forks, and spoons he has never had a case of a pig swallowing them.

Pigs tended to be fairly selective in what they ate, Mr Smedley said. For instance, they would leave needles alone. However, trouble occurred when they “dived in” to start feeding from a trough. While salt could cause poisoning if pigs got too much of it, he had not lost a pig because of this. Although Mr Smedley would not claim to be an economist, he has discerned lately an indication of economic conditions — a reduction in the amount of garbage he has collected in the last few months. This he puts down to less waste, because of rising costs. One item that has fallen away markedly is waste bread. Mr Smedley has not been unhappy about the decline in the quantity of garbage, for he now has less land and aas had to cut down on his pig enterprise. One item he did not find in his garbage, although he looked long and hard for it, having been asked to do so, was an engagement ring.