Effective pain management in pig farming is increasingly recognised as essential welfare practice, yet remains inconsistently applied across procedures including castration, tail docking, teeth clipping, and injury treatment.
The welfare cost of pain in farming procedures has been seriously underestimated historically, based on outdated assumptions that piglets feel less pain than older animals. Neurobiological evidence shows that piglets have fully functional pain systems from birth and that procedures including castration, tail docking, and teeth clipping cause acute pain responses measurable in behaviour, vocalisation, and stress hormones. The chronic pain of lameness — affecting millions of pigs globally — is similarly documented but poorly managed. The key barrier to better pain management is not cost (NSAIDs are inexpensive) but habit, awareness, and regulatory pressure. Where certification schemes require pain relief, uptake increases substantially, demonstrating that the barrier is primarily cultural and regulatory rather than economic.