The phase-out of gestation crates is a major welfare advance for pregnant sows, but group housing alone does not guarantee good welfare. Environmental enrichment — providing materials and opportunities for exploration, manipulation, and natural behaviour — is essential to complete the welfare picture.
Barren group housing swaps one welfare problem (immobility and social isolation in crates) for another (aggression, frustration, and stereotypy in barren pens). The welfare solution requires both adequate space and meaningful enrichment. A sow in a barren concrete pen with no rooting material spends much of her day performing oral stereotypies — bar-biting, rooting at the floor — that indicate chronic frustration. Providing deep straw bedding addresses multiple welfare needs simultaneously: it provides rooting material, improves thermal comfort, reduces lying-related injuries, and reduces aggression. The cost of straw enrichment is modest relative to its welfare benefit, but many producers avoid it due to slurry system incompatibility. Enrichment provision is one of the clearest areas where regulatory standards and market-driven certification are both needed.