Commercial pig farming typically weans piglets at 3-4 weeks — far earlier than natural weaning at 12-17 weeks — causing significant welfare costs for both sow and piglets.
Early weaning in commercial pig production is one of the clearest examples of a practice that serves production economics while causing demonstrable welfare harm to millions of animals. The acute distress of abrupt separation — observed in vocalisation, searching, and subsequent behaviour changes in both sow and piglets — is a welfare cost that farmers, supply chains, and consumers have largely accepted as inevitable. It is not: slower-growing, longer-lactation production systems with later weaning ages demonstrate that better welfare is commercially viable. The elimination of farrowing crates — which currently confine sows during the lactation period that precedes weaning — would also change the economic calculus that drives early weaning. Progressive welfare standards should specify minimum weaning age alongside farrowing crate reform.