Published on Feb. 18, 2025
Hypor Improves the Social Behavior of Sows
Discover how Hypor’s selection can improve both sows' and farmers' welfare.
Why is it important to have sows with a good social behavior?
As farms expand and skilled workers become scarce, pigs must thrive with minimal help. In today’s pig production, fostering social harmony among animals has become more crucial than ever. That is why Hypor aims to select females with strong social skills to live peacefully in groups. We focus on these traits to create a better environment for animals and workers, improving their general well-being.
We must then take into account the sow's experiences with both her peers and the farm workers over her lifetime. The more long-term positive interactions a sow has with animals or humans, the more we will see her as sociable.
How to achieve this?
Strong social skills keep sows calm, reduce stress and negative behaviors, and make them easier to manage for farm workers. For more insights on reducing animal stress levels, refer to this article.
However, measuring behavior can be challenging and sometimes subjective. It may therefore be worthwhile to look at traits that are easy to measure and indirectly improve the social skills of the sow. For example, in our nucleus farms, we house maternal lines in loose gestation pens.
In a 300-head dynamic gestation pen, the Hypor sow thrives not only in behavior but also in achieving high farrowing rates and a large number of total born piglets.
The calm interaction in these pens saves labor when you consider the time needed to move, interact with and care for the sows. It lets us indirectly select for sows with social skills, as well as with exceptional feet, legs and body structure. Loose housing helps sows adapt to farm workers, enabling the selection of those with better behavior toward humans.
They’re very docile, very calm animals in an open pen gestation environment, which is perfect for a Proposition 12 compliant mark.
Improved work conditions and animal welfare
Selecting sows with excellent social abilities is vital for fostering productive and efficient settings. Hypor is establishing new standards for social characteristics in pig production by focusing on calm, cooperative, and adaptable sows.
These traits benefit both animals and farmers by reducing anxiety, improving handling ease, and boosting overall productivity. This Hypor Customer Success Story highlights how improved sow behavior benefits everyone.
Hypor is committed to breeding thriving farm animals, promoting a more sustainable and ethical approach to pig production.
For further insights, explore our vlog on Sow Behavior.
