Outdoor pig production offers significant welfare advantages over indoor intensive systems but introduces unique challenges from weather, predation, and disease exposure.
Outdoor pig welfare represents the most genuine expression of what pigs need: space to root, mud to wallow in, social groups to interact with, and freedom from barren confinement. Research consistently shows outdoor pigs show fewer abnormal behaviors, lower stress hormones, and higher positive welfare indicators. The welfare benefits are real and the management challenges — predation, parasite burden, weather — are solvable with good husbandry.