Positive welfare indicators in pigs go beyond absence of disease to assess whether animals are experiencing good emotional states and expressing natural behaviors.
Pig positive welfare assessment represents an important shift from solely measuring suffering to assessing the presence of positive experiences. Pigs in good welfare conditions display playful running, jumping, and mock fighting that are distinctly different from the stress-motivated behavior of overcrowded or barren environments. Providing enrichment that enables exploratory behavior, ensuring social stability that allows relaxed affiliative contact, and creating environments where pigs choose to engage with their surroundings rather than merely endure them constitutes genuinely good welfare. Regular behavioral auditing that counts positive as well as negative indicators provides a more complete welfare picture than clinical inspection alone.