For pigs in the meat industry, the welfare requirements are significantly lower than for hobby pigs. The way they are kept would be punishable by a private person. A pig was seized by the Animal Protection because the stay was unsuitable. Instead of 6 m2, the animal should be given 75m2 and a mud pool. How does the minister justify giving pigs 100 times less space in livestock farming?

Pigs: More than eleven million pigs in the Netherlands.

Lived in the Netherlands last year 11,456,831 pigs. This number is a snapshot, because new pigs are constantly being born and pigs are brought to slaughter. The Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) divides pigs into roughly three categories : piglets, fattening pigs and breeding pigs.

5169374 Piglets. Piglets weigh about one and a half kilograms at birth. They stay with their mother for less than a month (about 28 days) and drink her milk. After that, they get solid food. They stay until they are more than ten weeks old with their mother in the so-called “breeding company”.

5261683 Fattening pigs. When they weigh an average of 25 kilos, the young pigs go to a meat pig farm. There they are brought to weight for slaughter.

A meat pig weighs about 125 kilos and is about half a year old when it goes to slaughter.

1025774 Breeding pigs. Breeding pigs also include sows, which are kept to raise and suckle young piglets at the breeding farm. A sow is sexually mature after about eight months. After a successful insemination, she is 115 days pregnant. That's exactly three months, three weeks and three days. So she is about a year old when she first casts. A sow gets an average of 165 piglets per pitch. Subsequently, a sow has an average of 56 throws.

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