Intensive pig farming
From Free net encyclopedia
‘Intensive piggeries’ or hog lots are a type of concentrated animal feeding operation specialized for the raising of hogs up to slaughterweight. In this system of pig production grower pigs are housed indoors in group-housing or straw-lined sheds, whilst pregant sows are confined in sow stalls and give birth in confined farrowing crates.
Hog lots represent an efficient and profitable method of meat production. However, the use of sow stalls has led to animal welfare concerns. The world’s largest producers of pigs (U.S., Canada, Denmark) all use sow stalls, but some nations (e.g. the UK) and some US States (e.g. Florida) have banned them.
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Intensive Piggeries
Intensive piggeries are generally large warehouse-like buildings. Indoor pig systems allow the pig’s condition to be monitored, ensuring minimum fatalities and increased productivity.
Buildings are ventilated and their temperature regulated. Most domestic pig varieties are susceptible to heat stress, and all pigs lack sweat glands and cannot cool themselves. Pigs have a limited tolerance to high temperatures and heat stress can lead to death. Maintaining a more specific temperature within the pig-tolerance range also maximizes growth and growth to feed ration. In an intensive operation pigs will lack access to a wallow (mud), which is their natural cooling mechanism. Intensive piggeries control temperature through ventilation or drip water systems (dropping water to cool the system).
Pigs are naturally omnivorous and are generally fed a combination of grains and protein sources (soybeans, or meat and bone meal). Larger hog lot operations may be surrounded by farmland where feed-grain crops are grown. Alternatively, piggeries are reliant on the grains industry. Pig feed may be bought packaged or mixed on-site. The intensive piggery system, where pigs are confined in individual stalls, allows each pig to be allotted a portion of feed. The individual feeding system also facilitates individual medication of pigs through feed.
Individual stalls also means that disease in hog lots are carefully monitored. Indoor systems also allow segregation of sick pigs, and limits mixing. Most piggeries will use a quarantine system which requires that access is carefully monitored and special clothing worn when inside the buildings. For this reason, unauthorised access to a hog farm (e.g. by animal rights protesters) can have considerable disease implications.
Indoor systems, especially stalls and pens (i.e. ‘dry’ not straw lined systems) allow for the easy collection of waste. Manure is an environmental issue in any hog farming system (indoor or outdoor). In an indoor intensive hog lot, manure can be managed through a lagoon system or other waste-management system. However, odour remains a problem which is difficult to manage.
The way animals are housed in intensive systems varies. Breeding sows will spend the bulk of their time in sow stalls (during pregnancy) or farrowing crates (with litter) until market. However, grower pigs - which comprise the bulk of the herd - are usually housed in alternative indoor housing, such as batch pens. During pregnancy, the use of a stall may be preferred as it facilitates feed-management and so growth control, and prevents pig aggression (e.g. tail biting, ear biting, vulva biting, food stealing). Group pens generally require higher stockmanship skills. Such pens will usually not contain straw or other material. Alternatively, a straw-lined shed may house a larger group (i.e. not batched) in age groups.
Criticism of intensive piggeries
Sow Breeding Systems
The major problem with intensive farming systems are animal welfare concerns, especially given the increased political activism on animal welfare issues. These animal welfare concerns generally concentrate on the sow housing system (how pregnant sows are housed).
Organised campaigns by animal activists have focussed on the use of the 'sow stall' and 'farrowing crate'. The sow stall has now been totally banned in the UK, although it remains an integral part of mass market pig production in the US.
A ‘sow stall’ is the name of the confinement system for adult sows. It usually does not allow the pig to turn around, although it can usually sit down. This system leads to the welfare-friendly animal practices discussed above. The major reason for their use is that it prevents aggressive pig behaviour towards pregnant sows, thus reducing miscarriages and increasing litter survival and the farmer’s productivity. However, it is at considerable deviance to a ‘natural’ system of animal rearing.
Only the sows selected for breeding (i.e. pregnant sows) will spend time in a sow stall. In an intensive system, the sow will be placed in a stall prior to service (mating) and will stay there for at least the start of her pregnancy, where the risk of misscariage is higher. The length of the sow's gestation is 3 months, 3 weeks, and 3 days. A sow may spend this entire time in the space-restricted crate. However, a variety of farming systems are used and the time in the crate may vary from 4 weeks to the whole pregnancy. Some criticism of intensive piggeries has focussed on reducing the time in crates, as a compromise to abolishing them completely. However, some believe that the use of stalls, for any length of time, is abhorent.
There is also some criticim of 'farrowing crates'. A farrowing crate houses the sow in one section and her piglets in another. It allows the sow to lie down and turn around to feed her piglets, but keeps her piglets in a separate section. This prevents the large sow from sitting on her piglets and killing them. However, it prevents some natural sow behaviours towards its young. Some models of farrowing crates may allow more space than others, and allow greater interaction between sow and young. However, crates may also be desigined with cost-effectiveness in mind and therefore be smaller. Critics to intensive piggeries may advocate larger farrowing crates or loose housing. A louse housing system may be to house in pens (with closer stock supervision) or, in outdoor systems, in insulated huts.
Outdoor versus indoors
Intensive piggeries, now the norm in economic pork production, has been increasingly criticised in preference of ‘free-range’ systems. Such systems usually refer not to a group-pen or shedding system, but to outdoor farming systems.
All pig systems have advantages and disadvantages and in many cases research may be equivocal. On the one hand, outdoor systems are less economically productive due to increased space requirements and higher morbidity. They also have a range of environmental impacts (e.g. denitrification of soil, erosion) and welfare impacts (e.g. sunburn, heat stress, piglet squashing, increased worms and parasites). Depending on local conditions - such as geography, climate, and availability of skilled staff -- these problems may be able to be managed.
Those that support outdoor systems usually do so on the ground that they are more animal friendly and better allow pigs to express natural behaviours (e.g. wallowing in mud, relating to young, rooting soil).
However, transition of an indoor production system to an outdoor system presents obstacles. Certain breeds of pig commonly used in intensive farming have been selectively bred to suit intensive conditions. Lean pink-pigmented pigs are unsuited for outdoor agriculture, as they suffer sunburn and heat stress. In certain environmental conditions – for example, a temperate climate – outdoor pig farming of these breeds is possible. However, there are many other breeds of pig suited to outdoor rearing, as they have been used in this way for centuries. Many breeds, such as the Gloucester Old Spot and Oxford Forest, are enjoying a resurgence in the UK, where the use of stalls in indoor systems is banned, for precisely this reason, as well as the potential to charge a premium for using a traditional breed.
Outdoor pig farming is generally held to not be as productive as indoor pig farming and has higher morbidity and lower litter sizes, although new research from the UK (where outdoor pig farming is used) disputes that productivity is necessarily lower. Despite this research, the British Pig Executive indicates that the pig farming industry in the UK has declined since the change in the law.1. The increase in production costs has led to British pig-products being more expensive than those from other countries, leading to increased imports and the need to position UK pork as a product deserving a price premium.
Effects on family farms
Another criticims of intensive piggeries is that they represent a corporatisation of the traditional rural lifestyle. The rise of intensive piggeries has largely replaced family farming. For example, between 1982 and 1987 some 21% of Iowa hog farmers went out of business. By 1992, another 12% had gone out of business. In large part, this is because intensive piggeries are more efficient than outdoor systems, pen systems, or the family farm hog pen. In all major pork-producing countries (e.g. US, Canada, Australia, Denmark) the use of intensive piggeries has led to market rationalisation and concentration.
External links
- Swine Production: A Global Perspective
- The Pig Site – industry support site with feature articles and news, with an emphasis on intensive farming practices