Group housing for gestating sows replaces individual stalls and allows social behaviour expression. Implementation requires careful management to realise welfare benefits.
Group housing for sows enables fundamentally better welfare than individual confinement but introduces new challenges. Aggressive interactions during group formation can cause injuries. Dominant sows may monopolise resources in poorly designed systems. Good outcomes require appropriate group size, adequate space per sow, adequate resource points, and attentive stockmanship that identifies and manages social problems. When well-implemented, group housing allows sows to express social, exploratory, and postural behaviour denied in stalls.