RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Smithfield Foods Inc., the world’s largest pork producer, said Thursday it is on track to end the practice of keeping female hogs in small metal crates while pregnant at its U.S.

Ohio has greatly limited the use of gestational crates for pregnant sows following years of pushing by animal rights advocates. Why it matters: There are more than 2.5 million hogs in Ohio, which is ...

AMES, Iowa – Pork producers who are looking to abandon the use of gestation crates to house pregnant pigs will have to weigh a series of options to find the best fit for their operations, said an Iowa ...

For most pregnant pigs on big factory farms in the U.S., each four-month gestation is spent in a tiny crate. The sows can stand up but can’t turn around or take more than a couple of steps. Slats in ...

When you pick up fresh pork chops from behind the glass at Mariano’s, you can be sure the product came from a farm that does not use gestation crates — metal enclosures so small the pigs kept in them ...

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) – McDonald’s Corp. said Monday it will require its U.S. pork suppliers to provide plans by May to phase out crates that tightly confine pregnant sows, a move that one animal ...

Last November we reported that Smithfield, the world’s top pork producer, had recommitted to phasing out gestation-crate confinement at all of its facilities by 2017. Soon they could have incentive ...

The Humane Society of the United States welcomes the announcement by Costco—the nation’s second-largest food retailer—that the chain is calling on its pork suppliers to eliminate their confinement of ...

Unlike Illinois shoppers, people in California and Massachusetts don’t have to wonder whether the bacon they’re buying was produced humanely or whether the pigs were kept in gestation crates, cramped ...