What the evidence shows about effective enrichment for pigs across different farming systems and what the minimum standards should be.
Pig enrichment science has reached clear conclusions that are only slowly being translated into regulatory requirements. Pigs have a strong, persistent investigatory and rooting motivation that cannot be satisfied by hanging chains or rubber balls - they require manipulable, destructible material that changes shape and texture as they interact with it. Straw provides this most effectively but creates slurry management challenges in slatted systems. Genuine welfare improvement requires strengthening standards to require materials that actually satisfy rooting motivation.