Pigs are capable of positive emotional states including play, curiosity, and apparent joy, and high-welfare farming explicitly aims to provide conditions where these positive states can be expressed.
Pig welfare science has advanced beyond preventing suffering to actively measuring and promoting positive emotional states. Play behavior is both a welfare indicator and a welfare good: pigs at play are experiencing positive emotions that constitute genuine wellbeing, not merely the absence of suffering. Creating conditions where pigs play requires space, environmental complexity, social stability, and the absence of the chronic stress that suppresses play behavior. Farms that achieve high rates of positive welfare indicators — play, exploration, relaxed social interaction — are demonstrating a quality of life for their animals that conventional production systems cannot match.