Intensive Pig Farming

Intensive Pig Farming

Intensive piggeries (or hog lots) are a type of animal husbandry specialized in the raising of domestic pigs up to slaughter weight. They are also known as an AFO or CAFO in the U.S. In this system of pig production, grower pigs are housed indoors in group-housing or straw-lined sheds, whilst pregnant sows are housed in sow stalls (gestation crates) or pens and give birth in farrowing crates.

The use of sow stalls for pregnant sows has resulted in lower birth production costs; however, this practice has led to more significant animal welfare concerns. Many of the world’s largest producers of pigs (US, Canada, Denmark, Mexico) use sow stalls, but some nations (e.g., the UK) and some US states (e.g., Florida, Arizona, and California) have banned their use.

Read more about Intensive Pig Farming:  Intensive Piggeries

Famous quotes containing the words intensive, pig and/or farming:

    We have to transpose ourselves into this impressionability of mind, into this sensitivity to tears and spiritual repentance, into this susceptibility, before we can judge how colorful and intensive life was then.
    Johan Huizinga (1872–1945)

    And God-appointed Berkeley that proved all things a dream,
    That this pragmatical, preposterous pig of a world, its farrow that so solid seem,
    Must vanish on the instant if the mind but change its theme ...
    William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)

    ... farming conservatism, which consisted in holding that whatever is, is bad, and any change is likely to be worse.
    George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)