Accurate pain assessment in pigs is essential for welfare monitoring but remains challenging due to the stoic nature of prey species and lack of validated assessment tools in farm settings.
Pain assessment in pigs faces a fundamental challenge: prey species have evolved to conceal pain and weakness that would identify them as targets for predators. Farm pigs retain this instinct, meaning that visible pain expression represents significant underlying suffering that has overcome the behavioral suppression mechanism. Validated assessment tools including grimace scales and lameness scoring have made progress, but their use in routine farm management remains limited. The economic argument for pain management is strong — pigs in pain grow more slowly, have higher disease rates, and produce lower-quality reproduction outcomes — yet routine analgesia for painful procedures remains inconsistent. Stockperson training in pain recognition is one of the most impactful welfare interventions available at farm level.