There are animal welfare concerns about the continued use of permanent crating systems for farrowing and lactating sows, which is the most prevalent maternity system in global pig production. Greater societal attention in recent years has culminated in changes (or proposed changes) to regulations...

Reduction of the disruption in suckling patterns and cross-suckling in multi-suckling systems was investigated in pens designed to permit prior familiarity of animals with the environment. Groups of 4 Large White × Landrace sows and litters were allocated between 2 treatments, each with 4...

Creep feeding can improve growth and performance of piglets before and after weaning, especially if sow milk supply is reduced for any reason, but intake by suckling piglets is often low. It was hypothesised that the sequential presentation of different flavoured creeps each day would stimulate...

Determining best practices for managing free farrowing systems is crucial for uptake. Cross-fostering, the exchange of piglets between litters, is routinely performed amongst crate-housed sows. However, cross-fostering can increase fighting amongst the litter and may be more challenging within free ...

The farrowing crate poses a welfare dilemma; the restriction of sow movement interferes with the performance of species-specific behaviours such as nest-building, orientation, exploration and communication with the piglets and leads to increased physiological stress. However, allowing the sow more...

Temporary crating (TC) provides lactating sows with the opportunity to move more freely after crate opening a few days after parturition. The aim of this paper was to evaluate whether TC gives overall welfare improvement when compared to permanent crating or free farrowing. This review shows that...

Tail biting is an important animal welfare issue in the pig sector. Studies have identified various risk factors which can lead to biting incidents and proposed mitigation measures. This study focused on the following seven key measures which have been identified to affect the risk of tail biting...

The behaviour of 3-week weaned pigs in different housing systems was examined as part of an assessment of the suitability of the Straw-Flow system for pigs of this age. Three replicate pens of 20 pigs were weaned at 6.4 kg liveweight into each of: (a) deep-straw; (b) Straw-Flow; (c) large flatdeck; ...

To quantify the combined effect of housing conditions and environmental enrichment on the behaviour and performance of pigs, a meta-analysis was performed using information from 45 experiments in 42 published manuscripts. Multiple regression models were applied to evaluate the effects of space...