CAWF visits campaigner Michelle Farnham
CAWF co-founders Lorraine Platt and Chris Platt visited campaigner Michelle Farnham in Trafalgar Square in London as she undertakes the grueling challenge of spending 21 days and nights inside a metal pig farrowing crate cage.
Michelle Farnham with CAWF co-founders Lorraine Platt and Chris Platt
Michelle’s campaign draws public attention to the severe confinement experienced by 60% of mother pigs on intensive indoor farms in the UK. Farrowing crates are used for around 5 weeks at the time a sow gives birth and while she nurses her piglets. The metal bars restrict her so severely that she cannot turn around or move freely. Each farrowing crate is so narrow that the sow can stand up and lie down but is unable to move around to explore her environment. These cages have no enrichment and cause the greatest degree of confinement of farmed animals of any system in the UK and European Union.
Michelle said that she wanted people to see how abhorrent the farrowing crate is and she lived, ate and slept in the cage for the whole time with a tarpaulin covering the cage at night. She flags up the reality for mother pigs who endure this cruel practice for each pregnancy- deprived of the basic provision to even turn around in the crate and interact with their piglets.
Although no human experience can fully replicate that of a sow, spending 21 days in such a confined space gives the public a stark impression of the physical restriction involved and makes the severity of the confinement impossible to ignore. For mother pigs, this is not a symbolic protest: it is part of their lives on farms where these systems remain in use.
Michelle Farnham inside the farrowing crate
Sows are highly intelligent and sensitive animals with strong natural instincts. Before giving birth, they are driven to explore their surroundings and gather materials to build a nest. Inside a conventional farrowing crate, these natural behaviours are severely restricted. They endure pressure sores due to prolonged lying on hard slatted floors and suffer mentally because of boredom and prolonged confinement.
Farmers use crates principally to reduce the risk of piglets being crushed. Protecting piglets is important, but there are alternative systems designed to provide them with protection while allowing the sow greater freedom of movement.
Moving away from farrowing crates is the way forward and the UK must also ensure that imported food meets welfare standards equivalent to those expected of British producers.
The crate demonstrates the severe restriction imposed on a sow
Michelle’s determination is helping to make an often-hidden farming practice visible to the wider public. Her campaign asks people to consider whether it is acceptable for a mother pig to be confined so tightly that she cannot even turn around.
CAWF is calling on the Government to ban pig farrowing crates and support zero confinement systems. By working constructively with farmers, retailers and the wider food sector, we can protect piglets while giving sows the freedom to move and care for their young.
Mother pigs deserve better than a life between metal bars.