Providing effective rooting and foraging enrichment is the single most impactful welfare intervention available in intensive pig housing. Research clearly identifies what works.
The evidence base for pig enrichment is unusually strong: we know which materials work, why they work, and what the welfare and production outcomes are. Straw, hay, and other organic materials allow pigs to express rooting behavior — a fundamental motivational need they will work hard to access. Fixed enrichment objects provide minimal behavioral opportunity and pigs habituate quickly. The welfare case is clear, and the economic case is increasingly clear: reduced tail-biting eliminates the need for painful tail-docking in well-managed enriched systems. Closing the gap between evidence and practice is a policy and enforcement challenge, not a scientific one.