Pork Production Today
U.S. pork producers take pride in providing the proper
care for the swine on their farms.
Animal welfare,
animal health, food safety and the environment
are some of the main factors pork producers consider.
Producers’ livelihoods depend on using the best
management practices to ensure the well-being and
performance of their animals.
Individual farm management practices focus, among
other things, on housing facilities, feeding and
ventilation systems and temperature and environmental
controls. Just as producers have to determine the type of
facilities and equipment for their farm, they must find the
practices that best fit their farm’s specific situation.
Some procedures and treatments can be short-term stressors,
so producers must weigh the long-term welfare, health and
management benefits to the animals.
Using the knowledge obtained from science, producers have
adopted and adapted techniques and
husbandry skills to protect the welfare of their animals.
They consider anything short of providing the best, humane
care possible as being self-defeating.
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Commonly Asked
Questions
About Swine Care
Why is it important
that producers
provide the best care for
their animals?
Simply put, personal and moral responsibility, a market
and profit. The vast majority of producers take personal
responsibility for the care of their animals. They truly
care about the comfort and well-being of their animals.
Producers will spend the night in the farrowing house
tending sows giving birth or go out in a storm to adjust
the ventilation or to ensure that pigs have adequate dry
bedding.
Pigs not properly cared for grow slower, experience
more morbidity and/or mortality and require more
veterinary treatment. A market historically has been
assumed, but customers today want to purchase pork
derived from pigs that have been raised under humane
conditions. Pigs not marketed generate only expense
and no income.
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