Respiratory disease causes significant suffering in pigs globally. Understanding disease dynamics and implementing prevention strategies reduces this major welfare burden.
Pig respiratory disease creates sustained welfare suffering across the production cycle. Affected pigs experience breathlessness, fever, reduced appetite and lethargy — welfare states that persist for days to weeks in uncomplicated cases and longer in complicated infections. The connection between housing welfare — ventilation quality, stocking density, temperature management — and respiratory disease risk means that welfare improvements in housing simultaneously reduce disease burden. Farms with good welfare standards have lower respiratory disease prevalence, demonstrating the alignment between welfare investment and disease prevention. Treatment with appropriate antibiotics and anti-inflammatories reduces duration of suffering when disease does occur.