Sow Gestation Crates vs Open Housing

I dont use gestation stalls and never have I farrow in individual huts and find that the girls have as much room as needed. They also have an area outside their hut that allows them to come out of their hut and leave their babies inside. I house all my girls in open housing paddocks and have done so for 20 years.

I think the practice is taking so long because it is a "new idea" to those that are heavily involved with their use and they are a bit hesitant about not being able to use them and seeing the outcome of it frightens them. I dont have a problem with it as I have said I have never used them. it also takes time to change sheds in to "free farrowing" rather than the "easy confined farrowing." 

In my personal opinion we can get the same productivity from a sow in Gestation crates or Pen gestation (think when an animal has stress one of the first sign is stop reproduction this is not the case). The productivity in both systems will depend of management.
The change comes from the consumer pressure and the change has to be done if the people that buy our product request the change.
With the cost of land in some countries the cost production could be higher but if the consumer wants and pays that’s the game.

My wife and I have an 100 sow / 80 farrow farm in Thailand. From my observation of watching gilts moving from open housing into stalls they do not appear to mind. Actually, it is my opinion, they enjoy the confined area. I have watched “neighbor” pigs get mad and want to strike out at their neighbor and cannot. I have watched sows moving back-and-forth from housing stalls into farrowing stalls and they are never hesitant to return to a stall, they move right into the stall and then adjust to their new home. I have left doors open and the pig almost never wants to leave their own personal stall. Actually, it is hard to get a pig to leave their private home!

In my head I cannot understand why a pig finds comfort in their own little private world (stalls) but then I am not a pig and cannot think like a pig. Could it be they find comfort in not having to confront situations of altercations with other pigs? Maybe they find comfort in having the perfect amount of feed given to them twice a day? Maybe they find comfort in the personal up close observations from their handlers making sure they are healthy and taking care of their problems? Maybe a sow likes being able to lay dawn without worry of a new born baby being under her? I am not a pig so I do not know what they think.


I have also watched sows farrow in an open cage without a stall (when I have over bred my farrow cage capacity) and the mother and babies appear to do just fine. For me as their handler that open cage makes it a lot harder; it is harder to save a piglet the mother has laid down on one, it is harder to see what is going on with each of the newborn piglets, it is harder to help her farrow those piglets when she has problems in delivery, and it is harder to provide medication when needed. Maybe that is why pig farmers long ago started to use farrowing and housing stalls?

I attempt to understand the pig advocates but I do wonder if their logic is based on real knowledge of pigs? I wonder why the advocates of the pig come in groups that have not spent years watching over and caring for pigs. Do these advocates know that we (pig handlers) can walk down a row and see what each and every pig needs. Have they ever stopped and “flirted” with a pig wanting attention. Do they know that pigs react very intimately with their handlers and those handlers can tell on days 21/42/63 which pigs are not pregnant? Have they ever stood next to a boar that is barking / grunting out his love? (I have a 500 pound boar that loves to talk to me!)

Do they know that we, the pig farmers, are all advocates of what is best for each and every pig because our livelihood depends on the pig! We need to make sure each pig is living in a perfect environment of happiness and health that is conducive to farrowing perfect litters. Those litters are the beginning of our income source!

I am not an advocate and I do not know what advocates think but with them I can read what they say and attempt to understand what they think. I have to wonder, why don’t those advocates spend their money and build test barns with and without crates and then spend years in observation to determine which system is really the best and attempt to understand what a pig thinks. And then after their scientifically conducted experiment is over tell us the results so we, pig farmers, know exactly why we need to spend all of the money to redo our farms,

That is what I think,
Randall Ellis, a small pig farmer in Thailand

In Denmark we still have more than 30 piglets each sow a year and the sows are working free. The biggest problem is the manager and the workers, it´s not so much the sows. I would like to come and talk about our experience in Denmark. I could be a supervisor for a period, but its very important that each farm has a person with experience in free sow herd before you release the sows.