🐖 Gestation Crate Reform 2025

Global Progress on Ending Sow Confinement in Pig Farming

Gestation Crates: A Major Welfare Issue

Gestation crates (also called sow stalls) are metal enclosures approximately 60 cm wide and 200 cm long in which pregnant sows are confined individually during most of their 16-week gestation period. The crates prevent sows from turning around, limit social interaction, and severely restrict natural movement and behavioral expression. Pigs are highly intelligent, social animals with strong motivations to root, explore, and interact. Gestation crate confinement causes physical problems (joint disease, muscle weakness from immobility) and psychological harms (stereotypies, frustration, depression-like states) well-documented in the scientific literature.

Scale: Globally, hundreds of millions of sow-gestations occur annually, the majority still involving some period of gestation crate confinement. The US alone has approximately 6 million breeding sows, historically with majority gestation crate use. EU has around 12 million breeding sows, with group housing now legally required for the majority of gestation.

Progress by Region in 2025

European Union

The EU's Directive 2008/120/EC required group housing for sows from four weeks after service (mating) to one week before farrowing — eliminating continuous gestation crate use from 2013. This represents substantial welfare progress for EU sows, though the period around mating and farrowing still involves crate or stall use. Several EU member states have tighter national requirements.

Full Phase-Out Movement: Animal welfare organizations have advocated for complete elimination of individual sow housing including farrowing crates. Some producers are trialing "free-farrowing" systems where sows can move freely during birth and early nursing. Research demonstrating manageable piglet mortality in well-designed free-farrowing systems is supporting this transition in pioneering farms.

United States

The US has seen significant corporate commitment-driven progress. Over 70 major food companies — including McDonald's, Walmart, Costco, and most major food processors — have made commitments to source gestation crate-free pork. Implementation timelines have extended, with supply constraints slowing transition, but the directional commitment is clear. Several states (Florida, California, Michigan, Rhode Island, Colorado, and others) have enacted statutory bans on gestation crates.

Implementation Gap: Corporate commitments have consistently been made with timelines that have then extended. While the direction of travel is clearly toward gestation-crate-free production, the gap between commitments and on-ground implementation represents millions of sow-gestations still occurring in crates. Advocates are maintaining pressure for timely delivery of commitments.

Australia and New Zealand

Australia phased out sow stalls in most contexts by 2017 under an industry self-regulatory scheme, with ongoing pressure for complete elimination. New Zealand has implemented similar phase-outs. These markets have made substantial progress, though some individual housing at specific production stages remains.

Group Housing: Welfare Challenges

Group housing for gestating sows eliminates the most severe confinement welfare harms but introduces management challenges. Aggression between sows — particularly around feeding — can cause injury. Dominant sows may prevent subordinates from accessing adequate feed. Management of group-housed sows requires greater skill and attention than crate systems. Research into group housing design, feeding systems, and social management has produced evidence-based recommendations that enable welfare-positive group housing when implemented well.

Electronic Sow Feeding: Electronic sow feeding (ESF) systems allow individual sow identification and targeted feeding, reducing competition for feed in group housing. These systems improve the welfare economics of group housing by reducing aggression around food resources. ESF adoption is increasing globally alongside gestation crate phase-outs.

What Still Needs to Change

Despite progress, significant welfare reform remains needed globally: complete gestation crate elimination in the US, Asia, Latin America, and Eastern Europe; phase-out of farrowing crates (which confine sows during birth and nursing); elimination of routine piglet mutilation (tail docking, teeth clipping, castration without pain relief); improvement of broiler pig welfare (distinct from breeding pig welfare); and development and adoption of positive welfare indicators rather than just absence-of-harm measures.