The first days of a piglet life are the highest-risk period for mortality and welfare harm in pig farming. Understanding the welfare challenges of the neonatal period enables targeted interventions that save lives and reduce suffering.
Neonatal piglet welfare presents a concentrated welfare crisis in the first 72 hours of life: the majority of pre-weaning deaths occur in this window, and each death represents both a welfare harm to the dying piglet and an economic loss. The causes are well-understood and substantially preventable: starvation from failure to access colostrum, crushing when the sow lies on piglets who cannot escape, and hypothermia from inadequate heat provision in a piglet with no energy reserves. Targeted management interventions address each of these causes with evidence-based effectiveness. Ensuring all piglets access colostrum within the first hours — through split suckling that gives smaller piglets uncontested access, supplemental colostrum for very large litters, and fostering excess piglets onto sows with smaller litters — directly addresses the starvation risk. Creep areas with appropriate temperature supplementation that attract piglets away from the sow lying area reduce crushing risk. These interventions require extra stockperson time during the critical post-farrowing period, creating a management challenge that farms which prioritize neonatal welfare address through shift systems and performance-based attention allocation.