Science of Ethology, Volume 1, Issue 3

In our previous article, we have defined a non-competitive feeding system as one in which a sow is not able to obtain more feed by winning a fight.  Fights may occur in such a system, but the winning sow does not steal food from the loser.  This is accomplished by protecting the sow in a fully enclosed stall while she eats.  There are two basic types of non-competitive feeding system, the gated stall and the electronic sow feeder (ESF).  In an ESF system, there will only be one feeding station for a group of sows.  However, in the gated stall system, all of the sows in a group eat at the same time, and there must be a stall for each sow.  Gated stalls, or free-access stalls, are the most common system used in several European countries, including Belgium where 31% of farms and 37% of sows use the system.  Within that country it is the most popular choice when making conversions (Tuyttens et al., 2011).