Gestation stalls (sow stalls) confine pregnant pigs individually for most of their pregnancy. They are among the most controversial practices in animal agriculture, banned in many countries but still widely used globally.
Gestation stalls prevent the expression of highly motivated natural behaviours in one of the most cognitively complex farm animals. Pigs are curious, social, and highly active by nature — confinement to a space barely their own size for 16 weeks of every 20-week reproductive cycle represents severe, chronic deprivation. The stereotypic behaviours seen in stall-housed sows are not harmless quirks but behavioural indicators of psychological suffering — the equivalent of cage stereotypies in zoo animals long recognised as welfare-compromising. The welfare case against gestation stalls is robust and well-established in the scientific literature. The ongoing use of stalls in the majority of global pig production reflects economic and regulatory inertia rather than genuine scientific justification for the practice.