Pigs are sentient animals capable of experiencing pain, yet pain management in commercial pig farming has historically lagged behind companion animal medicine. Evidence-based approaches are improving this.
For decades, painful procedures in piglets were performed without anaesthesia or analgesia based on the assumption that young animals feel less pain or recover quickly. Neuroscience has disproven this — pain processing is functional from birth, and early pain experiences can cause lasting neurological changes. The welfare imperative is clear: any procedure that causes pain requires effective pain relief. Higher-welfare producers now routinely use analgesics for castration and other procedures, setting a standard the entire industry should adopt.