After thorough meta-analyses of the world\u2019s available literature on the state of being
\nengendered by two common keeping systems for pregnant sows and gilts, an international,
\nmultidisciplinary team of scientists recently concluded: \u201cAlthough individual studies found
\nsignificant housing system effects, subjected to the overall evidence from adequately designed
\nstudies, meta-analyses revealed that gestation stalls (non-tethered) or well-managed pens
\ngenerally (but not in all cases) produced similar states of welfare for pregnant gilts or sows in
\nterms of physiology, behavior, performance, and health.\u201d (J. J. McGlone et al., Prof. Anim.
\nScient. 20:105-117, 2004).
\nDespite this and other similar conclusions (e. g., J. L. Barnett et al., Aust. J. Agric. Res.
\n52:1-28, 2001), continuing political pressure by animal protectionists nowadays is causing North
\nAmerican producers, animal scientists, and veterinarians alike to ask: How should we go about
\noptimizing sow state of being?
\nA series of at least seven decisions will have to be made as we go about answering this
\nquestion. In what follows, we\u2019ll explore those topics and offer our opinions as to how we should
\nbe moving forward in these matters at this time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After thorough meta-analyses of the world\u2019s available literature on the state of being engendered by two common keeping systems for pregnant sows and gilts, an international, multidisciplinary team of scientists recently concluded: \u201cAlthough individual studies found significant housing system effects, subjected to the overall evidence from adequately designed studies, meta-analyses revealed that gestation stalls (non-tethered) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[930],"tags":[8882,640,13816,19216,1060,65,3804,5242,102,86,2327,20007,105,3322,111,47,10859,5243,5352,5665,63,22808,16262,14079,17743,5244,104,96,4599,3283,20911,27281],"class_list":["post-4266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-production","tag-al","tag-animal","tag-ass","tag-assess","tag-barn","tag-behavior","tag-genetic","tag-genetic-implication","tag-gestation","tag-gestation-stall","tag-gestation-stalls","tag-gh","tag-gilt","tag-gilts","tag-health","tag-housing","tag-nat","tag-objectively","tag-opinion","tag-optimizing","tag-performance","tag-pic","tag-pl","tag-pregnant-gilt","tag-prod","tag-protectionists","tag-sow","tag-sows","tag-stall","tag-stalls","tag-t","tag-welfare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4266\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}