How outdoor access and wallowing opportunities meet pig welfare needs in extensive systems.
Outdoor pig welfare encompasses genuine advantages and genuine challenges. The ability to root in soil, wallow in mud, engage in extended foraging, and express a full behavioral repertoire provides welfare benefits that well-managed indoor systems approximate but cannot fully replicate. Wallowing is not merely a pleasurable behavior — it is a physiological requirement for thermoregulation in warm weather. Outdoor systems without adequate wallow points during summer fail at a fundamental welfare provision. Simultaneously, outdoor systems face challenges including disease exposure, environmental extremes, and predation that require active management. The welfare quality of outdoor pig production depends heavily on management quality and whether systems are designed and managed with pig welfare as a central priority.