Neonatal piglet mortality is a significant welfare and production challenge in pig farming, with crushing by the sow being the leading cause of death in the first days of life.
Neonatal piglet mortality represents a massive welfare burden - millions of piglets die painfully each year from crushing, starvation, chilling or disease in their first days of life. The welfare trade-off between farrowing systems is complex: crates reduce crushing mortality but cause severe suffering for sows who cannot perform nesting and maternal care behaviours. Carefully designed free farrowing systems with nest areas, solid flooring sections, and good piglet protection features can achieve comparable mortality rates while allowing far better sow welfare. Selection against hyperprolificacy would also reduce the problem at source.