Tag Archives | Pigs

Oregon Farmer Eaten By His Pigs

By on October 3, 2012 in News 42

Little more remained of hog farmer Terry Vance Garner than his dentures, the Guardian reports:

Oregon authorities are investigating how a farmer was eaten by his pigs. Terry Vance Garner, 69, never returned after he set out to feed his animals last Wednesday on his farm near the Oregon coast, the Coos county district attorney said on Monday.

A family member found Garner’s dentures and pieces of his body in the pig enclosure several hours later, but most of his remains had been consumed, the district attorney, Paul Frasier, said. Several of the pigs weighed 320kg (700lb) or more.

It is possible Garner had a medical emergency, such as a heart attack, or was knocked over by the animals, then killed and eaten, Frasier said, adding that at least one pig had previously bitten Garner.

… Read the rest

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Midwestern Hog Farms Keep Mysteriously Exploding

By on March 16, 2012 in News 17

6506284705_6ed9d1801a_bHog farming is even grosser than you imagined. Farms keep spontaneously blowing  up due to chemical interactions involving bacteria-laden gas and a brown goop of sketchy origin. Ars Technica writes:

Since 2009, six farms have blown up after methane trapped in an unidentified, pit-topping foam caught a spark. In the afflicted region, the foam is found in roughly 1 in 4 hog farms.

There’s nothing farmers can do except be very careful. Researchers aren’t even sure what the foam is. “This has all started in the last four or five years here. We don’t have any idea where it came from or how it got started,” said agricultural engineer Charles Clanton. “Whatever has happened is new.”

A gelatinous goop that resembles melted brown Nerf, the foam captures gases emitted by bacteria living in manure, which on industrial farms gathers in pits beneath barns that may contain several thousand animals. The pits are emptied each fall, after which waste builds up again, turning them into something like giant stomachs: dark, oxygen-starved percolators in which bacteria and single-celled organisms metabolize the muck.

… Read the rest

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Morgan Stanley Employee Implicated in Pigs & Prostitution

By on March 10, 2012 in News 4

The bizarre case of Anna Gristina, the accused millionaire madam being charged with running a widespread prostitution ring in the Upper East Side, got even more absurd as her history of pig rescuing and posing in racy photographs surfaced on Wednesday.

Susan Magidson, who has worked with Gristina in saving six pigs over the last few years, told the New York Times:

Pigs are one of Anna’s passions. When people love pigs, in my opinion, they are special and unique — and in my opinion, the chosen ones — because they’re just such a special animal, highly intelligent, emotional animal, so it’s like working with orphans.

All which raises the question, who exactly is Gristina? Is she the 44-year-old, suburban mother of four? A brothel queen bee with nude model ambitions? Or is she simply a misunderstood swine lover?

Adding to the list of peculiar characters is Morgan Stanley employee David Walker, who authorities say had a private meeting with Gristina shortly before she was arrested.… Read the rest

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Outrage Over South Korea’s Mass Live Burial Of Pigs

By on March 24, 2011 in News 98

Factory farming practices are always bloody and cruel, but this seems to go above and beyond. Following an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease, since December South Korea has killed 20% of its domestic livestock — 3 million animals have been exterminated, mostly pigs, who are being buried alive by the thousands in gigantic pits. The practice is traumatizing workers (who hear the pigs’ screams in their sleep) and provoking outrage around the world. Video footage is difficult to sit through:

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