Providing appropriate rooting and foraging substrate to pigs is a critical welfare need that significantly reduces frustration behaviours, aggression, and tail biting in all production systems.
Enrichment substrate is not a luxury for pigs but a fundamental welfare requirement. Pigs denied appropriate rooting material in barren environments suffer chronic frustration from inability to express one of their most motivated natural behaviours. This frustration drives the redirected oral aggression including tail biting that causes injury in barren-floor systems. Appropriate enrichment including straw, compost, or novel objects reduces tail biting, aggression, and stereotypic behaviour simultaneously. The welfare improvement from providing adequate enrichment is immediate and substantial, and the cost is modest relative to the benefit.