Hogs at a Whitefield farm have better shelter this week, according to a state animal welfare official.
Mark Hedrich, of the Dept. of Agriculture’s Animal Health and Industry Division, said compliance officer Alan Hunter visited the property located at 868 East River Rd. several times, in response to complaints about the pigs’ exposure to the elements. The town’s animal control officer and selectmen were also informed of the issue.
The pigs are confined to small moveable pens on skids with a roofed shelter. Hedrich said rain and mud earlier in the fall complicated the landowner’s efforts to keep the pigs on dry ground.
The animals otherwise “seem to be in pretty good shape, their feed situation is okay,” Hedrich said.
Compliance officer Hunter and a Newcastle woman, who earlier offered her barn as lodging for the animals, worked to improve the pigs’ shelter by securing tarps and providing dry bedding last week. Hedrich said Hunter reported that he left the “hogs nestling down in the straw and looking up at him as if to say, ‘Thank you.'”
Complaints last January about the condition of the animals also prompted a department investigation. At that time, two larger pigs were protected by part of a truck and evergreen boughs. The inspector found the conditions rough but within animal welfare standards.