Pigs with outdoor access can express rooting, foraging, and social behaviours denied in intensive systems. Outdoor and free-range pig production offers substantial welfare benefits alongside environmental management challenges.
Pigs are curious, intelligent animals with strong drives to root, explore, and engage socially. Intensive confinement frustrates these drives, leading to boredom, aggression, and injury. Outdoor and free-range systems allow pigs to express natural behaviour, dramatically improving welfare outcomes. Key welfare indicators — play, positive social interaction, and absence of injuries — all improve with outdoor access. Consumers can drive change by choosing higher-welfare pork products and supporting farm welfare standards that require outdoor access or high-quality enrichment for indoor pigs.