In swine production, gestation housing has elicited a raging controversy regarding the welfare of pigs. Fundamentally, gestation stall is a small housing used in keeping a pregnant sow. Gestation stall is constructed using metals and is applicable in intensive pig farming.
A sow stays in the gestation stall during the period of pregnancy. Given that a sow has a specific gestation period of 114 days, farmers keep them in gestation stalls for a period four months. Since a healthy sow can have two litters per year, it means that it stays in a gestation stall for a period of 8 months.
The first production reason for keeping sows in separate stalls during pregnancy is to enhance their safety by eliminating natural aggression among pigs. Naturally, pigs are aggressive in that they fight against each other for they often fight for food, space, and dominance when kept group housing. The second production reason is that it enables farmers to undertake intensive farming by optimizing space, water, and food.
Given that the nutritional demands of pregnant sows vary according to their sizes and stage of gestation, farmers can accurately determine the amount of food for each sow without the fear of sows depriving each other of the assigned portions. The third reason is that gestation stalls eases management of pigs. In gestation stalls, farmers can easily monitor pigs, reduce contamination, prevent diseases and pests, and give medications to pregnant sows.
The legal status of gestation stalls in Canada is that it is illegal to rear pigs in gestation stalls. In 2014, the National Farm Animal Care Council came up with legislations, which prohibit the keeping of pigs in gestation stalls, where they cannot turn around and lie down comfortably without squeezing in rails. Also the legislations require pregnant sows to be kept in group housing and in spacious stalls when nursing their newly bred litter for a maximum period of one month.
In the United States, the Humane Society of the United States advocates for the banishment gestation stalls and has managed to convince nine states, namely, Florida, Ohio, Oregon, Colorado, California, Arizona, Michigan, and Rhode Island, and Maine, to enact relevant legislations.
England has banned the keeping of pigs in gestation stalls because it is unethical, cruel, and barbaric practice, which tortures animals. In this view, National Pig Association in England is advocating for pigs’ rights by demanding the banishment of gestation stalls and improvement of their living conditions and treatment. In France, the use of gestation stalls in keeping pigs is still legal as there are no legislations that prohibit farmers from using them.
Electronic sow feeding is a form of feeding that entails electronic provision and regulation of food that sows receives in their stalls when kept in a group house. Given that sows compete for food when they are kept in groups, electronic sow feeding eliminates unhealthy competition for food. The electronic sow feeding is a system that consists of the feeding station and feed dispenser.
Sows enter the feeding station individually and the feed dispenser gives the correct amount of food, which a sow eats in the feeding station without undue disturbance. When the food portion exhaust, a sow leaves the feeding station and the next sow enters it. Entry and exit gates coupled with identification tags regulate the mechanism of the electronic sow feeding and ensure that each pig receives the right portion of food.
The advantages of gestation stalls are that farmers can effectively control aggressive behavior of sows, determine the amount of food for each sow, and maximize space. However, the disadvantages are that the control of food intake is a manual practice and sows have no freedom of movement.
Comparatively, advantages of electronic sow feeding are that the control of feeding is automatic, reduced aggression during feeding, enhanced freedom of movement, and the amount of food apportioned to each sow is accurate. However, the disadvantages are that there is some aggression in group housing and the electronic sow feeding system is expensive to install and maintain.