The farrowing period — birth and early life of piglets — is a critical welfare window. Farrowing system design, sow behavior, and piglet management all affect survival and welfare outcomes.
The farrowing period creates a genuine welfare dilemma: sows in farrowing crates suffer severely from movement restriction, but free farrowing historically carried higher piglet crushing risk. Modern free-farrowing system design — with nest areas, creep zones, and movement space — has substantially narrowed this gap, achieving lower or comparable piglet mortality alongside dramatically improved sow welfare. The routine painful procedures performed on piglets — castration, tail docking, teeth clipping — without anesthesia cause acute suffering that is unjustified and largely preventable with better management. Addressing farrowing welfare requires considering both sow and piglet simultaneously.