Scientific understanding of pig enrichment has advanced significantly; effective enrichment must address rooting, chewing, and social investigation drives.
Enrichment science has moved beyond simply providing any object and toward understanding what drives pig engagement. Pigs are motivated by substrate investigation and rooting — needs best met by providing floor-level material they can manipulate and ingest. Enrichment that is fixed, novel but quickly exhausted, or provided without considering pig motivation has limited welfare value. Straw bedding satisfies rooting, chewing, thermoregulation, and nest-building needs simultaneously and is the gold standard. Where full straw bedding is not feasible, providing deep straw boxes or equivalent daily offers meaningful enrichment. Enrichment must also be seen in the context of overall housing quality — it cannot compensate for severely overcrowded conditions.