AN undercover two-month investigation by animal welfare activists has resulted in a raid last night by police, animal welfare inspectors and the NSW Food Authority on a piggery 20 minutes north of Canberra.

“Animal activists from Animal Liberation ACT & NSW discovered and photographed pigs, sows and piglets living in appalling conditions,” says Mark Pearson, executive director of Animal Liberation NSW.

“Images also included buckets of dead piglets, a sledge hammer used to bludgeon pigs, and sows with open sores.

“This piggery is one of the worst examples of factory farming where animals are treated like ‘production machines’ and no thought is given to their capacity to suffer.”

Hidden cameras filming over several weeks revealed sick and dying animals, workers throwing and kicking piglets and beating sows, and infestations of flies around and on the pigs, said Jess Ferry, co-president of Animal Liberation ACT.

In the slaughter room, the footage showed pigs being hit with a sledgehammer before their throats were cut and being left to die in agony over six minutes, sometimes with a slaughter man returning to use the knife or sledgehammer again, Ferry said.

“No stunning device was used, and workers were seen to be drinking from beer bottles during their shift in the slaughter room.”

RSPCA NSW Chief Inspector David O’Shannessy later confirmed to AAP that the facility’s operations had not been suspended and investigations were continuing.

Animal Welfare League representative said they are furious that when, during yesterday’s investigation, the piggery owner, they said, admitted he had been sent 42-minutes of film footage the day before.  The league is launching  its own investigation into how this happened.