Outdoor free-range pig systems offer significant welfare advantages over indoor intensive systems but also create specific welfare challenges that good management must address.
Outdoor pig welfare represents a genuine improvement over indoor intensive systems for most welfare criteria: natural rooting behaviour is fully expressed, environmental complexity is high, and natural light and seasonal variation provide environmental enrichment. The welfare challenges of outdoor systems — weather exposure, predation, parasites — are real but manageable through good husbandry. The net welfare balance strongly favours well-managed outdoor systems over typical indoor intensive housing.