In order to raise awareness of the plight of pigs reared in Britain’s factory farms, an animal rights activist is currently spending 21 days inside a farrowing crate in Trafalgar Square, in Central London. At the time of writing this post, she is currently on Day 7, and you can follow her journey on her instagram page here. She will be in this crate for the full 21 day period, in what is no doubt going to be a physically and psychologically difficult experience. The protest has been arranged by Animal Rising, a well-known animal rights group, and forms part of their larger campaign to raise awareness around the horrible conditions of factory farms, and the use of farrowing crates within the pig industry.
Michelle states that she is doing this because over the past few years, she has spent hundreds of hours reviewing footage obtained inside factory farms as part of efforts to expose the cruelty they say is taking place within factory farms across the UK.
The announcement of the stunt coincided with the release of undercover footage obtained inside a UK pig farm. The video, captured by Animal Rising at the dedicated “farrowing” hall on the farm, follows a mother pig and her piglets for the period of roughly 1 month. The full video can be viewed here.
The video shows the relaity of pigs raised in factory farms, and whilst the focus is more on how restritive farrowing crates are and how inhumane the useage of such a crate is, the video also shows a number of additional practises within the farming industry that would otherwise be kept hidden. This includes footage of controversial procedures on the newborn piglets, including teeth clipping (supposedly carried out to prevent injuries to both the adult pigs and other young piglets) and the removal of piglets’ tails (supposedly done to prevent tail biting). Both of these procedures are carried out as a way to stop injuries being caused to the pigs by one another, as biting is a key sign of stress within pigs and bites can lead to serious infections and thus, more cost to the farmer.
Farrowing crates are a common but unspoken part of pig raising within farming practices. Farrowing crates are designed to prevent the mother pig (sow) from being able to move around at all, usually only being tall enough and wide enough for the sow to be able to stand up and lie down. But she cannot turn around or walk whilst in the farrowing crate. The RSPCA Assured webpage states that farrowing crates are needed to protect both the sow and the piglets: Sows can weigh up to 200kgs, whilst newborn piglets can be as smlal as 2kgs, and there is the risk that if the sow was not confined, she may accidentally step on the piglets or roll onto them in her sleep and not even notice due to how tiny they are compared to her. Despite their obvious impact of sow welfare, farrowing crates are still legal in the UK, and as a result around 60% of UK sows are confined in farrowing crates when giving birth and nursing their piglets. This is supposedly only meant to be for the initial birthing period of the piglets – around 1 month – but there have been multiple campaigns by animal rights groups and undercover footage which suggests that the sows can be in these crates for far longer periods.
There has been an increased call for farrowing crates to be banned, and in early 2026, the UK government did announce plans to ban farrowing crates as part of their animal welfare reforms. However, nothing concrete has yet been put into place, and therefore farrowing crates still remain a legal way to raise sows and piglets. Hopefully this campaign and this protest helps to highlight just how inhumane the use of a farrowing crate is, which in turn will help to speed up the banning of these crates within the farming industry.
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