Pig housing systems range from extreme confinement to extensive outdoor systems. Understanding the welfare implications of different housing choices helps consumers and advocates make informed judgments.
Pig housing represents a spectrum of welfare outcomes, not a binary of good and bad. Each system makes different trade-offs: outdoor systems maximize behavioral freedom but increase disease risk; confinement systems enable health management but severely restrict natural behavior; group housing systems balance social and behavioral welfare with management challenges. The welfare optimal point is somewhere in the middle — group housing with adequate space, straw or rooting substrate, and outdoor access or enriched indoor environments — and this is achievable at scale, as demonstrated by the best European producers.