Providing pigs with outdoor access and enrichment dramatically improves their welfare, satisfying natural rooting, foraging, and social behaviours suppressed in intensive housing systems.
Pigs in barren, indoor systems with no enrichment suffer from boredom, chronic stress, and inability to express natural behaviours. Tail-biting, aggression, and stereotypies such as bar-biting are common welfare indicators of environmental inadequacy. Outdoor access with wallowing facilities, rooting substrate, and varied terrain provides profound enrichment. Even for indoor systems, providing straw, compost, or manipulable objects reduces welfare-compromising behaviours substantially.