Moving beyond the absence of suffering, positive welfare science identifies indicators that pigs are experiencing good lives. Understanding these markers helps farmers create truly welfare-positive environments.
Positive welfare science represents a paradigm shift from simply preventing suffering to actively providing good lives for farm animals. For pigs, this means creating environments where they have opportunities to express their full behavioral repertoire: rooting in substrate, exploring enrichment materials, playing with companions, foraging, and experiencing comfortable resting. Welfare assessment tools increasingly include positive indicators alongside negative ones — the Welfare Quality protocol includes positive welfare domains. Farmers who use positive welfare indicators to monitor their herds report better outcomes than those who focus solely on health metrics. A pig displaying free play behavior is a pig thriving — and thriving pigs also perform better commercially.