Outdoor pig systems provide significant welfare benefits over indoor intensive systems, but also introduce specific welfare challenges requiring active management.
Outdoor pig systems represent a genuine welfare improvement over intensive indoor production. Pigs can root, wallow, explore, and interact socially in ways that indoor systems prevent. The welfare benefits are measurable — lower stress hormones, fewer stereotypic behaviours, and higher positive welfare indicators. But outdoor systems require active management of heat, mud, predation, and disease. The welfare gains of outdoor systems are most secure when backed by good management rather than treated as automatic simply because animals are outside. Consumer support for outdoor and free-range pork certification incentivises farmer investment in these higher welfare systems.