Sow reproductive management in commercial pig farming creates significant welfare challenges including repeated pregnancy, farrowing stress, and short productive life with high welfare costs.
The reproductive demands placed on commercial sows — multiple pregnancies, large litters, intensive lactation — impose cumulative physiological costs that become welfare-significant over their productive lives. Progressive lameness, wasting, and reproductive failure signal welfare deterioration that precedes culling decisions. Proactive body condition monitoring, appropriate nutritional support, and timely culling before welfare decline becomes severe are the most important management-level welfare interventions for breeding sow herds. Welfare certification programs that specify sow management standards address this often-overlooked dimension of pig welfare.