Group housing for sows during gestation provides significant welfare benefits over individual stalls. Electronic sow feeding (ESF) systems allow group housing while managing competition at feeding.
Group housing with ESF represents a genuinely welfare-positive advancement for gestating sows: they can walk, root, lie in contact with other sows, and feed in a managed, individual way that prevents competition-driven nutritional inequity. The welfare improvement over individual crates is not marginal — it is fundamental, enabling sows to live as the intelligent, social animals they are rather than being immobilized for months. The primary welfare challenge in group housing is managing aggression at mixing, which can cause injuries. Well-managed stable groups established after the aggression-prone early gestation period show excellent welfare outcomes.