The Mizoram government has banned the use of constricting crates used for pregnant and nursing pigs in piggeries across the State.
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The move followed a petition from the Mercy For Animals India Foundation to prohibit the manufacture, sale, and use of gestation and farrowing – the production of a litter of pigs – crates for sows.
The Deputy Secretary of Mizoram’s Animal Husbandry Department confirmed the ban on such crates in compliance with the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act of 1960, a spokesperson of the foundation said on Wednesday.
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The foundation has been running a nationwide campaign seeking a ban on the gestation and farrowing crates. Mizoram is the sixth State after Delhi, Manipur, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, and Uttarakhand to issue directives banning these crates.
On behalf of the foundation, film actor John Abraham had earlier sent a letter to Parshottam Rupala, Union Minister for Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying, seeking a similar ban.
“Pregnant and nursing pigs confined in gestation and farrowing crates don’t have enough space to even turn around. As a result, the pigs suffer bone degeneration and show signs of extreme stress, including biting the metal bars of the crates,” Nikunj Sharma, the foundation’s CEO, said.
A Right to Information (RTI) response furnished by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research’s National Research Centre on Pigs said gestation and farrowing crates severely restrict movement and hence violate Section 11(1)(e) of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act.
The ICAR had, in January 2014, written to all veterinary universities and the National Research Centre on Pigs, advising against the use of gestation crates in their research facilities.