Considering which animals people are concerned about, and why, can be fascinating. For example, why are so many people appalled by the idea of horse meat or dog meat, but okay with eating pigs and cows? Do we generate empathy and concern for animals that are more familiar to us? That we think are intelligent? That we think are cute? Science tells us that those things do matter to us, even if we don’t realize it.

New research is out that questioned whether pet owners think differently than non-pet owners about the lives of pigs on commercial farms.

Most commercial farms house sows in “farrowing crates” for the month following birth, while newborn piglets are nursing. The crates are made of bars that restrict sows’ movements so that they can only stand up and lay down, but cannot turn around or walk. These crates have concerned animal welfare folks for a long time because of the amount of confinement the sow experiences. The original purpose of farrowing crates was to ensure that piglets wouldn’t be crushed by their mothers' movements (although other studies have questioned how much benefit they provide in comparison to other options).

Although a handful of countries have banned the use of farrowing crates (think Sweden, Switzerland, Norway), 9 out of 10 sows are kept in farrowing crates in the U.S. and most European countries. The same is true in Brazil. Two researchers from the Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina in Brazil, Bianca Vandresen and Maria José Hötzel, tried to understand what impacts people’s feelings about farrowing crates. (If you weren’t previously familiar with “farrowing crates,” you aren’t alone. Many of the people surveyed in Vandresen & Hotzel’s study weren’t either.)

Specifically, the researchers were curious whether connecting to animals at home could influence how people thought about the experiences of the sows on farms. They designed a survey of about 2,000 people recruited via Instagram to find out whether people who owned pets, specifically dogs or cats, were less likely to support the use of farrowing crates.

The researchers found that support for farrowing crates was low overall, but dog and cat owners felt even more strongly than non-pet owners that the farrowing crates weren’t acceptable. Pet owners were more likely to report feeling bad for the sows. The authors went one step further in their questioning and found that people who regarded their pets as family members reported feeling even worse for the sows than pet owners who did not refer to their pets as family.

This study raises some interesting questions… Does having a pet lead to compassion toward sows? Or are people who are concerned about pigs more likely to own pets? Does feeling badly for the sows make one less likely to purchase pork from producers that use farrowing crates? (Given past research, probably not.)

Regardless, this study makes an interesting connection between how people think about familiar animals in their own homes and animals on farms. It opens up some new lines of thinking about how people may connect emotionally to animals with whom they don’t have first-hand experience, so important in a world where we have so much impact on animals that we will never meet.

Curious to hear your reactions, thoughts and ideas — feel free to leave a comment below!

Learn more about the researchers

Bianca Vandresen, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Florianópolis, Brazil

Maria José Hötzel, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Florianópolis, Brazil

Article

Vandresen, B., & Hötzel, M. J. (2021). Pets as family and pigs in crates: public attitudes towards farrowing crates. Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 105254. doi.org/10.1016/j.applanim.2021.105254