Providing appropriate enrichment to pigs is a legal requirement in many countries and a welfare necessity, as pigs deprived of environmental complexity develop serious behavioral problems including tail biting.
Pig enrichment is one of the most clearly evidence-based welfare interventions available in commercial pig farming. Pigs have a strong drive to root, investigate, and manipulate their environment. When prevented from doing so in barren concrete and slatted floor environments, this motivation redirects toward pen-mates, causing the tail biting that is one of the most serious welfare problems in commercial pig production. The provision of adequate quantities of genuinely manipulable enrichment material — not just a hanging chain that pigs interact with briefly before losing interest — dramatically reduces tail biting and the associated suffering. That many farms continue to provide inadequate enrichment reflects enforcement failures rather than any uncertainty about the welfare evidence.