I spent last Thanksgiving on a 320-acre farm in Pocahontas County, Iowa where Jerry Depew grows corn and soybeans, and for more than 10 years, has also raised hogs. Jerry never has more than several hundred hogs at a time, and while this used to be commonplace on Iowa farms, most small and mid-sized hog operations in the state were lost during massive industry consolidation over the last 15 years.

Jerry's hogs remained because he raises them differently.

The hogs I saw on Jerry's farm lived in hoop houses. These pole-supported buildings have a partial concrete floor (the rest is dirt), plenty of room for the pigs to move around, and open sides to let lots of fresh air circulate.

Jerry's sows have never seen anything like gestation crates, which keep pregnant pigs tightly confined and unable to turn around.  On Jerry's farm, mama pigs roam around on a pasture, munch on oats, and give birth in small farrowing huts, which they can enter and exit at will. They are kept in the pasture by one low electric wire six inches off the ground, and many of the sows had just given birth as we showed up.

 I had never seen a newborn piglet, so I went out to the pasture and opened a farrowing hut to take some pictures. While the sow got to her feet when I cracked the door, she remained calm and the piglets grouped around her and away from the cold air I let into their hut. Jerry's son told me that you can tell a good sow by how it lays down -- the slower her movements, the more time her babies have to get out of her way and the less chance they have of her crushing them.

Fast forward nine months to a conversation with a friend who sells hog feeders to giant confinement operations. After I told him about being in the pasture with those sows a day after they had given birth, he reacted with surprise because he thought the sows would have reacted aggressively while I was in the pasture. It occurred to me that he didn't account for the stress sows in confinement are under that amplifies their behavior.

Full Story: http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/10/16/6143/7206?source=daily