 In January 2017 the company said that 87 percent of sows on company-owned farms were no longer in crates, and that it would require its contract farms to phase out crates by 2022.As of January 2018, on company-owned farms in the United States, Smithfield confines pregnant sows in gestation crates for six weeks during the impregnation process.When pregnancy is confirmed, they are moved to pens within a group-housing system for about 10 weeks, then to a farrowing crate, then back to a gestation crate to be impregnated again.