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Sows are housed in gestation stalls during their gestating period for a few big reasons. Those reasons are to provide safety to the sows, maintain their health, and also to provide safety to the piglets that they are carrying.
While there are other methods of housing gestating sows, the one that provides the most safety in my opinion is the gestation stalls. According to Dr. Mark Whitney, who is an assistant professor for University of Minnesota Extension, has a graph in his article that shows how individual stalls has a lower incidence for injures compared to group housing.
Gestation stalls are used to help sows that may be struggling health wise. The stalls allows extra feeding to the sows that need it and allows for individual care for the sows. Where as in a pen setting there may be some sows that don’t get enough feed compared to other sows.
Not only is the sows health important, but the unborn piglets health is also important. If the sows are fighting this can cause injuries to the piglets. Mentioned earlier individual stalls allows for the monitored feeding for the gestating sows. With this monitored feeding, it makes sure each individual sow gets appropriate feeding they need, which in turn makes sure the unborn piglets are getting the nutrients they need.
Gestation stalls allows for the extra care of sows and helps to minimize the amount of injuries that can occur in a group housing setting. While yes there are disadvantages for gestation stalls, and advantages for group housing, the main thing to keep in mind is that the health of the sows is what really matters. This is summed up well in the article provided by the We Care Initiative. Individual housing stalls can provide that extra care and individual care to the sows.
References
We Care Initiative. Caring for Sows. PorkCares.org, 2016. 18 Sept. 2016
Whitney, Mark. Gestation Sow Housing Systems: Which is Best?. University of Minnesota Extension. 18 Sept. 2016
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Overall, I like the simplicity of your post and how your simply laid out the facts to persuade your audience. Something I would encourage is keeping a professional tone by improving word choice, cleaning up sentences, (with commas, etc.) and developing clear thoughts. This will help build ethos for conveying your message more effectively.
I think your post was very informative and flowed really well while expressing how you felt about the issue. The comment I have is that for people like me who don’t know what a ‘Gestating Sow’ is I would explain that at the beginning. I realize that it is really easy to know the terms after using a few context clues to understand that it means a pregnant pig but just to make the post a tad bit more clear it might be a good idea. Overall it was really good!
I agree with your points about why individual gestation stalls are beneficial to sows. However, I think in order to provide a stronger argument you should talk about other methods that are available for sows in gestation. Also do sows have any affects from limited social interactions when they’re in their individual stalls?
I really like this article! I grew up on a farm with a hog operation, and I agree that gestation stalls are what’s ultimately best for the overall health of the sow and her piglets!