Australian sow stalls at Westmill Products “Lansdowne” Piggery NSW, 2013

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No graphic vision – it’s the sound that will stay with you. This is standard Australian pig farming – sow stalls in Westmill Products (aka “Lansdowne”) Piggery, Old Forbes Rd, Young NSW. Filmed in 2013.

They remain in the stalls for between 6 weeks (as dictated by the Model Code of Practice 2007) and the full duration of their pregnancy (16 weeks). The stalls are barely large enough for a fully grown female pig to take a single step forward or backward, and they are unable to move sideways at all. As they can’t move, they are forced to lie down in the same space where they urinate and defecate. Rather than individual feeding troughs, many sow stall sheds utilise long grooves or ditches that span across multiple stalls, where their bodily fluids can mix with the food.

The pig farming industry proudly states that it will be phasing out sow stalls from 2017, but this will not actually be a ban, just a reduction in the amount of time pigs will be forced to live in them. Female pigs will still be kept continuously in these cages for at least 5 days per pregnancy, and this limit will not be enforced or monitored because they are doing it “voluntarily”. Around one week prior to giving birth, they are moved to even smaller cages inside farrowing crates, where they remain for approximately six weeks until their piglets are weaned, at which point the sow is re-impregnated and the process starts over.