Pigs experience significant stress during loading, transport, and unloading. Transport is among the most welfare-significant events in a pig's life, and improvements in handling, vehicle design, and journey duration reduce suffering substantially.
Transport represents a convergence of multiple stressors for pigs: fear of humans, unfamiliar environments, motion, noise, temperature extremes, mixing with strangers, and physical exhaustion. The welfare harm is measurable through cortisol levels, injury rates, and mortality statistics. Research clearly shows that low-stress loading techniques, appropriate stocking densities in vehicles, and journey times under 8 hours significantly reduce harm. Investment in stockperson training in low-stress handling produces measurable welfare improvements at modest cost.