Positive welfare science asks not just how to reduce suffering in farmed pigs but how to provide conditions for genuine positive experiences — play, exploration, and social joy.
Positive welfare science moves beyond preventing harm to actively promoting good experiences for farmed pigs. Pigs in high-welfare environments show genuine positive affective states: they play chase games, engage in mock combat with companions, explore novel objects with apparent enthusiasm, and show positive anticipation behaviours before feeding. Cognitive bias testing — offering pigs ambiguous tasks and measuring whether they approach them optimistically or pessimistically — can now objectively measure mood states. Good welfare policy should set standards for positive experiences, not just absence of negative ones. Providing deep rooting substrate, novel objects, and outdoor access simultaneously addresses suffering and promotes positive welfare.