The farrowing system used when sows give birth has profound welfare implications for both mother and piglets.
The farrowing crate debate represents one of the most genuine welfare trade-offs in farm animal management. Crates prevent sow movement, causing serious welfare harm — the inability to nest-build before birth is acutely frustrating, and weeks of immobility causes muscle atrophy and joint pain. But sow freedom increases piglet crushing mortality. The welfare resolution is not to choose one suffering over another, but to design systems — through better pen geometry, rubber flooring, and housing design — that achieve both sow welfare and piglet survival. These systems exist; their adoption is the challenge.