Research into pig cognitive and emotional states is revealing that pigs experience positive emotions including anticipation, play, and social joy. These findings are transforming welfare assessment.
The welfare science of positive emotions in pigs has moved far beyond simply measuring the absence of suffering. Pigs are capable of curiosity, anticipation, social bonding, and play — emotional states that represent genuine positive welfare values that should be present in any system that claims to deliver good welfare. A pig that is not sick or injured but lives in a barren concrete pen with no enrichment, no rooting substrate, and limited social opportunity is not thriving — it is merely surviving. Measuring the presence of positive states — through play frequency, tail posture, exploration rates, and cognitive bias tests — provides a richer welfare assessment than disease or injury prevalence alone. High-welfare pig farming should demonstrably produce pigs with positive emotional lives.