Being pig-ignorant about everything to do with accounting and legal language, I can’t say if ‘current assets’ refers to animals running around in fields expressly set aside for them or to a column in the accounts that parallels and complements the column for liabilities.
Instead of going to the cinema with your mother, you now go with your husband. You hide your face in his chest when a film gets too violent and you look to him for comfort when they turn out very sad. You rewatch King Kong, Dersu Uzala, The Wounded Man and even Rosemary’s Baby, which is a legendary and foundational film for you and of which you’re now sure that you retain no pre-partum memory. You discuss characters, fear, compassion and identification with your husband. All your emotions are channelled by the art of cinema. You never mention the young man whom you loved as a teenager and who hanged himself in his bedroom. You are well brought up, you don’t say a word.
In the interest of improving the quality of eggs inside the shell, whether liquid, frozen or dried, and to eliminate causes of discolouration, contamination or pollution during the various stages occurring outside the handling rooms, from collection to wholesaling, the dealers, reps, commissioners, tinning companies and makers of egg products must make use of facilities with the appropriate refrigeration apparatus and equipment for their respective activity.
Now, when you think about the reindeer, you picture a herd fleeing contaminated plains, grazing on irradiated grass alongside genetically modified hens and egg products of all kinds. You no longer believe in Father Christmas. Sometimes you miss him.
Generally when we kill a hen, it’s because she’s stopped laying, because after two or three years they’re done, they don’t lay any more or only very rarely. And my cock he’s right over there, he’s a very old cock, he’s a good ten years old, a friend gave him to me, she only had three or four hens, poor things, what they only put up with, they didn’t dare leave their roost in the morning because a cockerel normally likes to mount seven or eight hens and if there are only three, it can be a hard life for them.
You don’t like your husband’s desire, you don’t like the frenzy of it, you don’t like the transformation it triggers in him, you feel as if you’re making love to someone else, you don’t want to make love to anyone else, you’d prefer your husband to stay the same, you’d like to be reassured, protected, comforted; you’re not frenzied, you’re not carried away, you’re not transformed. Your metamorphosis hasn’t happened yet.
The study of human behaviour is substantially weighted towards studying domestic animals’ behaviour. That said, industrial farming so drastically modifies the way animals live that it’s impossible to apply observations made in high-yield cages or stables to any calm consideration of life in today’s society.
You are living without jolts or clashes. You go on long journeys with your husband. You take the opportunity of travelling together in foreign lands to get closer to him. He is your refuge from the outside world. You sense your similarity. You’re bonding with him. You encounter indigenous peoples with him. You concentrate on the sights before you. You’re astonished, delighted, you’re expanding your horizons. When you get back, nothing has changed. You still struggle to accept physical lovemaking and the transformations it creates. You don’t want to move, you don’t want to quiver, you don’t want to reveal yourself. Rosemary’s Baby, which you may have seen with your mother at the very beginning of your life, goes round and round in your head. Something about your life repels or horrifies you. You need reassurance. You’re not ready yet.
There are four kinds of poultry farming: battery farming (code 3), in which each individual must have the use of 550 cm2; floor-pen farming (code 2), in which the individual is kept inside but retains free movement; outdoor farming (code 1) in which the individual lives outside and has the use of a building for shelter in bad weather; and organic farming (code 0).
Contrary to our usual expectations of numbers, these codes are inversely proportionate to the supposed well-being of the animal. Rather, they appear directly proportionate to the profitability of the different kinds of farm. Besides, this classification has the advantage of enabling us to envisage future farms to be coded 4, 5 and above, whose practical features we currently struggle to imagine.
You avoid travelling around Siberia and Lake Baikal, afraid of seeing your childish daydreams confront a reality far removed from fairy tales. You know that reindeer now live on farms, that their numbers are known and tracked, that they have become used to temperate and humid regions, that they’re no longer permitted to migrate to the East, that there are quotas for their slaughter, that their meat is prized and even that you could find yourself eating it one day.
Maman used to keep a sow. When it was time she’d bring it to the boar, then she’d wait for the births. Towards the end she had to watch the animal day and night because sows are huge, they sometimes crush their babies during birth. As my mother used to sell the piglets, she couldn’t let them be crushed, she would keep two or three and sell the rest.
Work keeps you away from home several times a week. You stay in hotels some nights, winters follow winters, at no point do you consider telling the story of Father Christmas to any possible future children. You wonder if you’re being haunted by the shadow of Rosemary, Polanski’s protagonist. You tell your husband about your resistance. He agrees with you. You were well brought up, you still are.
We can teach pigs many things, they’re very charming. If we tame them, they can come indoors, and there are people who keep pigs as pets. I find that a bit over the top because they get really fat, but they’re so sweet, when we had to slaughter them it was dreadful, we couldn’t bear having to give them up, we decided to stop keeping pigs altogether.
In the evenings when you’re far from home, you dine with colleagues, you prepare your work for the following day, you speak to your husband on the phone, you don’t take advantage of your repeated absences to take lovers, you think everything’s fine. You’ve a notion that nothing will change in the shape of your life, and, instead of alarming you, this thought is a comfort. You speak to your husband about it. He agrees with you. You’ve been well brought up and you still are.
The facilities for housing the pigs must be built in such a way as to allow each pig to lie down, to rest and to stand up without difficulty, to have access to a clean area in which to rest and to be able to see other pigs.
You move easily into professional life. You begin to see what it is you are aiming for. You’re afraid of getting stuck here but equally afraid of making a change. You feel trapped. You talk to your husband about it, he agrees with you. And as you’re well brought up, you go on.
When the pigs are tied up, their rope must not hurt them and must be inspected on a regular basis and adjusted whenever necessary so that they’re happy. Each rope must be long enough to allow the animals to move around. They must be tied in such a way as to avoid, as far as possible, all risk of strangulation and injury.
Your surroundings weigh on you. One day, heading off with friends to be far from family and your husband, you start to realise what you miss and what attracts you. You return more downcast, more alone and more fragile but also far surer of yourself.
If pigs are kept together, measures must be taken to avoid scuffles that go beyond everyday behaviour. Pigs showing ongoing hostility towards other pigs and the victims of this aggression must be separated or distanced from the group.
During your trips away with work, you meet a woman ten years younger than you. In the beginning you see her every now and then but, as time passes, though unplanned, your encounters become customary, regular, weekly. At first, you don’t think about it, you have no expectations, the young woman shows up every week, you have a coffee in town with her, you chat, you go to bed without necessarily having called your husband. You’ve been well brought up. You’ll stay that way.
The boars’ enclosures must be built so that they can turn around and take in the grunts, smells and shapes o
f the other pigs. As for the pregnant sows, they must be moved into farrowing pens where the dimensions must be sufficient for their piglets to suckle without difficulty.
On one of your trips, when it’s been several months of your weekly coffees with this woman ten years younger, she doesn’t come. You find that her absence leaves a gap. You wait for her. All that week, you think about her. You say nothing to your husband so as not to worry him. In order to lie, you’d have to speak. You’re well brought up, you mean to stay that way.
Pigs must not be kept in constant darkness. With this in mind, and to fulfil their behavioural and physiological needs, suitable natural or artificial lighting may be provided; for the latter, this must be at least equivalent to the period of natural light normally available between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. Additionally, a suitable fixed or mobile light of sufficient intensity to enable inspection of the pigs at any time must also be available.
When you return for work the following week, you’re afraid that the woman ten years younger than you whom you’ve got used to seeing on every trip may not be there. That day, you’re especially happy to see her. You don’t tell her so, nor that her absence has been more difficult than you expected. Silence is another kind of lie. You were well brought up. You still are.
All the pigs must be fed at least once a day. When pigs are housed in groups and don’t have access to food as and when they wish or to any automatic feeding system, each pig must be given access to food at the same time as all the other animals in the group.
You stay away from home a little longer than usual to join a few work meetings that previously you’d have had no qualms about missing. You talk to your husband about this, he agrees with you. The coffees you have with the woman ten years younger turn into dinners.
In order to avoid caudophagia, that is, the chewing or biting off of fellow pigs’ tails, a ‘painful form of anomalous behaviour observed under conditions of intensive breeding’, as it’s described by the European Food Safety Authority, caudectomy is widely practised. Carried out shortly after a piglet’s birth, this consists of cutting off the animal’s tail. In the pork industry, this operation is part of what we call ‘piglet care’.
The most reliable way to remedy the suffering which prompts an individual to attack its fellow consists not in eradicating the cause of hostility but in eradicating all or part of the fellow creature.
As far as possible, you avoid encounters with colleagues in your office or outside it. You don’t wish them to know why you systematically decline their invitations. You continue to dine regularly with the woman who’s ten years younger. You are well brought up, you are learning to live in hiding.
When the pig began to squeal I used to run away, we were living in a village, so when I heard it I’d hotfoot it straight to school which was just behind the house. That’s how I learnt to read and write, thanks to the pig, it squealed, it was vast, I went to school to get away from the pig’s squeals.
With the woman who’s ten years younger you go to restaurants where you’re unlikely to bump into your colleagues. When you happen to encounter one, you greet them distractedly. You’re well brought up, you mean to stay that way.
To allow them to satisfy their behavioural needs, all the pigs – with due consideration for their environment and population density – must have access to straw. The absence of straw, or of some other substratum enabling rooting, and the presence of slatted floors and a bare environment will, on the other hand, promote aggressive behaviour between individuals. The provision of toys such as ropes, chewy sticks and balls, despite not substantially reducing the risks of caudophagia, may calm the animals and diminish general violence between fellow pigs.
Your meetings with the woman ten years younger have become essential to your personal equilibrium. You say nothing about this to your husband. You’d have to say something in order to lie. You think you’ve done nothing wrong but you also think you may soon leave the city or go into hiding. You are preparing.
On those mornings we had to get up very early and put water on to boil in a great cast-iron pot, we’d go back into the courtyard, catch one by the trotter, four or five of us holding it down, we’d carry it outside, I don’t think that hurt but they’d be afraid, more than anything, that’s why they used to squeal, I never watched but I know how it used to go, one of them would stick the knife in, that was his job, I mean he was a farmer like the rest but at this time of year he was the one who did that job and he made a fair packet out of it, if he could fit three or four in a morning. After that we’d scald it and scrape it to get all the hair off, that was the men’s job. The women would generally be busy stirring the blood from the bloodletting that we’d gathered in a basin, you had to keep it runny and stop lumps forming, then, when the carcass had been split in two, they’d wash the guts out several times over while the men went off to play cards. We didn’t like killing the pig at all but that didn’t kill our appetites, we were all set up with excellent-quality cold cuts for the rest of the year.
You don’t like spending time at the office and you don’t like the countryside, either. On the other hand, you can hardly wait for your dinners with the young woman ten years your junior. You don’t mention them to your husband. In order to lie, you’d have to speak. You are preparing.
Pigs make for a lot of work all year round, what’s more they can fall ill, they get fevers, they come out in red splotches, it’s a kind of measles, sometimes they even die of it although most of them won’t, they decline slowly until they give up the ghost, that happened to us once or twice, it’s a real blow to the pocket as we don’t eat dead animals, if they die by themselves they can’t be eaten.
One evening when you’ve drunk too much, you sit plumb on the ground in the middle of town with the younger woman, you talk until late into the night, you describe your suffocating relationship with your mother, you talk about the grief you’ve been carrying with you, you discover that you’re angry with the whole world, your anger is on the verge of being expressed. Returning to your hotel in the early hours, you decide that you’re too old for such outpourings, that people could have seen you, at the same time you wonder why you’re feeling so feather-light. You’re on the point of letting yourself go.
Transferring the pigs from the unloading platform to the stockyards should be a simple process and should not require protracted staff intervention. The storage bays should be clearly identified so that the pig keeper understands the order in which the animals should be moved. The pigs themselves must be able to move smoothly towards the trap where they will be stunned and then bled.
One day you are feverish, you don’t go away for work, you pace back and forth like a trapped tiger, you feel hot, you feel cold, you feel locked in, you’d like to let the woman ten years younger know, you don’t have her number and even if you had it, a call from you might appear presumptuous. You brood.
In the corridors known as feeder corridors or death rows, facilities must be provided that give the animals no way of turning back or escaping. The corridors must therefore be narrow yet without constraining regular additions to the line. Every incident, jostling or traffic jam, every animal that trips with concomitant cries and panicked movements, can in practice lead to a temporary halt in the production line and proportionately reduce the yield.
With the woman who’s ten years younger, you talk about the young man whom you loved and who hanged himself in his bedroom. A tide of emotion overwhelms you, you begin to cry. You discover that losing your self-control offers unexpected pleasures. You are preparing.
The layout of the trap and the anaesthesia zone must also be planned such that staff may operate with ease without coming into direct contact with the animals. Restraining equipment must, in addition, be provided for cases of ineffective anaesthesia; as far as possible, all animals should be immobilised before they lose consciousness, both to protect staff from potential injury and to allow them easily to locate where on the pre-anaesthetised animal to target
for the greatest impact on brain function.
It’s been a long time since you stopped believing in fairy tales but your ideas about love are still very naïve. You’re trying to protect yourself. You’re trying to distance yourself. You’re keeping yourself and the truth apart. You’re trying to be numb, to tranquillise yourself, to dull your mind. You feel guilty, you’re angry with the woman ten years younger, you disparage what makes you happy. You don’t say a word to your husband. To lie, you’d have to talk. You brood.
The piercing stunner, the spring-loaded stunner and electrocution clamps are the three most common weapons used to stun animals before they’re bled. Loss of consciousness is a requirement. It causes the animal immediate loss of balance and respiratory arrest as well as tonic cramps (deep, protracted muscle contractions). It is recommended that bleeding be carried out within the minute following loss of consciousness. In fact, studies have shown that meat quality is inversely proportionate to the animal’s stress levels directly before death.
You try to control your emotions, to anaesthetise your senses, to suppress your outbursts, to distance yourself from the woman who’s ten years younger than you, to avoid her, detach yourself, to attain that old, familiar somnambulist state, to be numb, distracted, dulled, blind as you were before. You instate a regulation distance between you and her, you keep to it, you focus, during the periods you spend on work trips you stay head down, you don’t answer your phone, you eat at the hotel, you drink whisky, you get drunk, you watch the TV screwed to the ceiling, you turn off the sound, you channel-hop, you get dizzy, dull, you fill your head, you drain yourself. You lock your door as though someone might try to force it, you barricade yourself in as though someone were threatening you, you keep close to the walls as if someone were spying on you, you speak softly as if someone were listening. But when you realise that no one is spying, or listening, or pursuing or hassling or threatening you, or trying to force your door, you sink into melancholy. You are riven with doubt, weird and unlikely images crowd your dreams, you try to push them away, strange voices whisper in your ears, you pretend not to hear them. Your efforts come to nothing. You’re afraid of giving way, succumbing, screaming, desiring. You’re on the point of metamorphosing.
To Leave with the Reindeer Page 10