Dr. Jennifer Brown of the Prairie Swine Center in Saskatoon, SK said, told the Manitoba Swine Seminar In Winnipeg, MB, in February said what motivates a sow’s behaviour will help producers in having greater success with group housing.
Dr. Brown said when producers manage sows in groups instead of in stalls, it is the most apparent behavioural problem producers will have in managing those sows. Understanding why and when sows are aggressive, and what motivates that behaviour and the different ways to control it.
She said the numbers of sows managed in groups now compared to using stalls had increased significantly. Since the latest Code of Practice in 2014 came out, it encouraged producers to move to group sow housing, and that is occurring across the country for the last six years or so. While no specific numbers, Dr. Brown suggested producers in Quebec have as high as 38 per cent of sows in groups already. Across the country, from 20 to 30 per cent of sows are in groups, and that number will rise.
Dr. Brown said the Code promotes the changeover to groups by 2024, but some producers are hoping for an extension. Yes, it’s a considerable investment, and if producers are not making a big profit on pigs at this time, then yes, they’re going to want to delay those renovations a little bit further.
When comparing the pros and cons of group housing to single-stall housing, she said it depends on the system and the different management factors.
“It depends on who you’re speaking to and how successful they are in implementing group housing,” she said. “Certainly, with stalls, we’re all very familiar with their design and how to manage them with some variation.”
With group housing, depending on the feeding system and grouping practices, the results vary more. In some cases, producers are reporting more consistent body conditions of sows. From a health perspective, that’s very beneficial for the long term productive life of sows. These herds then see a reduction in mortality rate due to better-managed feed provision, especially in these ESF and free access ESF systems where each sow gets a specific amount of feed.
At the MSS, Dr. Brown addressed the factors that tend to influence social interaction, the social behaviour of sows housed in groups.
“With producers more familiar with all the different group housing systems, we need to dig in a little bit deeper into how we manage sows in these groups,” said Dr. Brown.

“We need a better understanding of the sow’s behavioural motivation and how her social behaviour develops over time,” added Brown.
She said when developing gilts specifically for group housing systems, there’s a lot of things the industry can do to promote their social development. Mix them a little bit earlier, so they develop the social skills and learn how to get along with other pigs even before they go to the nursery, as the studies prove. When growing gilts, perfect flooring is essential to help develop the right foot and leg health. And then, mixing them multiple times before they even come to the breeding stage will help them become better citizens when they go into a group housing system later on. All the genetics companies are now looking at developing sows for group housing systems. If animals are excessively aggressive, that’s going to be damaging to other animals in groups.
“We can deliberately select against aggression because it’s a behaviour that’s fairly heritable and so you can select for that trait,” said Dr. Brown. “Understanding the social hierarchy of sows is very important because when we put them in a group, there’s always going to be a social order that forms. Certainly, if sows are familiar with one another, that’s going to reduce the aggression between them.”
Sorting sows by parity is vital. Studies at the Prairie Swine Center and Minnesota show separating different parities, and especially the younger sows are going to benefit. They’re going to have higher back fat and have better conception rates in those isolated systems.
Dr. Brown expects to see a lot of collaboration and a connection between the technology used in new barns, feeding sows and new approaches to gilt development and training of animals. “Going into the future with the hope that we’ll see higher longevity in these animals because of investing that time and additional energy in these animals,” she said. “The fitness that they can get from group housing should also benefit them in the long term so we will have higher lifetime productivity. So it is greater efficiency going hand-in-hand with better welfare.” •
— By Harry Siemens