Welfare Indicators for Pigs on Farm

Validated, practical welfare assessment tools for pigs enable farmers and inspectors to identify problems early and track welfare improvements over time.

Key Facts

The Welfare Quality protocol for pigs includes 32 measures across four welfare principles
Key indicators include body lesions (bite wounds), lameness, respiratory symptoms, and tail damage
Behavioural indicators include play behaviour frequency, social cohesion, and exploration
Slaughter data including liver condemnation rates, lung lesions, and skin damage provide herd-level welfare insight
Benchmarking against industry norms allows farms to identify where they perform below standard

Welfare Considerations

Pig welfare assessment has advanced significantly in recent years. Outcome-based measures — focused on the pig rather than the housing system — provide a more direct picture of actual welfare status. A farm with technically adequate facilities may still have poor welfare if management is poor; outcome measures capture this gap. Key indicators like tail biting prevalence, lameness score, and body lesion scoring can all be collected by trained farmers during regular observations. Building this capacity systematically in the industry is one of the highest-leverage welfare improvements available.

What You Can Do

Support training programmes that build farmer skills in pig welfare assessment
Advocate for mandatory welfare outcome reporting in pig farm assurance schemes
Choose pork from supply chains with documented welfare benchmark data
Support development of real-time welfare monitoring technology for pig farms
Engage with industry bodies to promote welfare indicator standardisation across supply chains