Fostering and split weaning management strategies significantly affect piglet welfare outcomes — evidence-based protocols reduce competition and mortality in large commercial litters.
Litter management welfare in commercial pig farming is a skilled stockmanship challenge with significant individual welfare consequences. The trend toward extreme litter sizes, driven by genetic selection for maximum prolificacy, has outpaced the sow's capacity to support all piglets — creating a structural welfare problem requiring intensive management solutions. Cross-fostering, split weaning, and nurse sow systems are compensatory interventions that improve welfare for individual piglets in large litters when executed skillfully. However, the underlying genetic selection that creates litter sizes beyond sow nurturing capacity is itself a welfare concern: selecting for moderate litter size with better individual piglet viability would reduce the management burden and improve baseline welfare without requiring intensive compensatory interventions.