New animal welfare rules to ensure pregnant pigs are better treated

Group of piglets feeding from sow. Photo / Getty Images

New animal welfare rules to ensure pregnant pigs are better treated will come into effect tomorrow.

Ministry for Primary Industries compliance director Dean Baigent said the rules would now prevent farmers from keeping pregnant sows in stalls.

He said all people taking care of pigs from tomorrow must ensure that mated sows and gilts - young female pigs expecting their first litter - were not confined in stalls during pregnancy.

"The use of mating stalls for service is permitted, for no longer than one week," he said.

The Code of Welfare for pigs was developed by National Animal Welfare Advisory Committee under the Animal Welfare Act 1999, and was issued by the ministry in 2010.

Mr Baigent said while the committee recognised stalls were developed as a way of managing the negative aspects of sows' aggressive behaviour, they restricted other natural behaviours such as freedom of movement.

"The code set out a transition period to gradually move out of stalls to enable farmers to develop different ways of managing aggression within group housing and implement them on their farms," he said.

The changes come in a week in which animal welfare was thrust into the spotlight, as the abuse of bobby cows in New Zealand was exposed by animal rights group Farmwatch.

Video footage recorded by the group and released as part of a Safe campaign showed horrific abuse of bobby calves headed for the slaughter house.

Since the video's release, farmers across the country have taken to social media to express their shock and condemn the treatment of the calves as seen in the footage.