What science reveals about pig cognition and emotional life, and the significant gap between pig capabilities and typical farming conditions.
Pigs are among the most cognitively sophisticated farmed animals, yet are frequently kept in conditions that prevent nearly all natural behavior. Research has demonstrated that pigs experience positive and negative emotions, can learn from each other, show empathy toward distressed conspecifics, and have long-term memories. In intensive confinement systems, pigs are often kept on concrete or slatted floors with no bedding, little space, and no enrichment. Chronic frustration leads to stereotypic behaviors and aggression. The contrast between what pigs are capable of experiencing and what they typically experience in industrial farming is one of the starkest welfare problems in modern agriculture.