Pigs are among the most intelligent farmed animals, with cognitive abilities comparable to dogs. Conventional barren housing systems deny pigs virtually all opportunities to express their natural behavioral repertoire.
Pigs in conventional production systems live in cognitively impoverished environments that cause chronic behavioral frustration. An animal capable of learning complex tasks and forming individual social relationships is housed in bare concrete without opportunity for any natural behavior. The welfare implications are severe and the solutions are known — providing straw, rooting substrates, and environmental complexity dramatically improves welfare at modest cost. The gap between what is known and what is practiced reflects structural failures in welfare governance rather than lack of scientific understanding.