How to make pig farms more humane
The Canadian pork industry currently has a chance to ban keeping breeding pigs in cages. If the industry makes this move, we will certainly not be the first to do so. The European Union has already banned gestation crates and some countries in Europe have been practicing humane pork production for decades. I operate a successful pig farm and am well regarded by my peers and customers. As farmers, we work in the agricultural industry, but we put more emphasis on the “culture”, rather than the “industry” side of things.
In recent history, some profit-focused business people looked at farming from an industrialized, business point of view. They started applying the same rules of production that are used in manufacturing goods to stamping out pigs. The basic principles are simple: Get the maximum return on your investment with the least amount of input; maximize production by shortening the time it takes to produce the final product; cut cost on production material (pigs, bedding and feed), reduce the space needed to produce, automate as much as possible, and you will increase your profit. Weaning piglets after the shortest time possible will enable breeding the sow at least once more per year, getting around 10.5 piglets more per sow and therefore making more money. And the final step, contract breeding programs for “more efficient” pigs who grow faster and can be sent to slaughter at a younger age.
There are, of course, downsides to these industrial production methods.
Animal welfare is severely affected by confining breeding animals in gestation crates for their entire pregnancies, and then in farrowing crates (cages that sows are put into to give birth and nurse their piglets). Both crates eliminate the possibility of sow movement besides lying down or getting up. No bedding on the floor eliminates natural behaviours of rooting or nest building. Both of these housing systems cause sows to become mentally ill; they develop repetitive behaviours such as biting at the steel bars of their crates and banging their heads against them repeatedly.
Housing breeding pigs in this fashion is considered normal by our authorities, who call it a “common practice”; I call it government
I am certainly not the only pork producer in Canada to oppose treating animals as production units.
sanctioned cruelty against farm animals. The same is valid for beef feedlots, caged layers and industrial broiler production. It is certainly not the pigs’ fault that the industry has manoeuvred itself into a corner where their product has no more value, margins have become negative and they have limited funds to change their system into one that provides for basic welfare standards for the animals.
On our farm, yes, we need to make a profit in order to make a living — but not through animal suffering. We don’t raise more animals than our land can handle. We don’t confine our livestock in crates or pens and don’t deprive them of natural sunlight — all of our animals have the choice of going outside.
I am aware that the system I’m describing is not for any pig farm larger than 500 to 600 sows. But any producer raising more animals than that is running a factory, not a farm, and I am certainly not the only pork producer in Canada to oppose treating animals as production units. On our farm, we raise pigs in groups. Pigs naturally establish a hierarchy and, depending on how experienced the handler is, there will be bruises. Serious fights between animals of the same group are a rarity and can be avoided with proper husbandry. Our stocking density is a fraction of that of factory farms; a sow in a crate will only ever have 12 square feet to call her own. We group farrow four sows in a space that an industrial farm would cram 16 mother pigs into.
Our sows don’t know what a crate is, not even during farrowing. Research in Sweden has found that compared to piglets born in crate systems, piglet mortality in group housing systems do not differ significantly. Stress in sows was shown to be reduced: the animals were healthier and could be used longer in production. The same results have been reproduced in Iowa at the ISU Armstrong farm; before and during farrowing, the sows have access to “private” rooms and all other sows respect each other’s space. When they feel “ready”, they’ll come out into the group area and proudly introduce the new members to the other girls.
Our system requires more management and attention to detail — pigs are really hard on the furniture! — but that is offset by no cost for medication and growth enhancers, heat or vet bills and no environmental problems such as odour and manure storage. The biggest reward is seeing piglets and their moms outside digging, wallowing, rooting and grazing. Yes, a pig’s life can be a good life!