Recognizing pain in pigs is challenging because of their stoic nature and the production context that discourages intervention, but validated pain scales are improving assessment.
Pain recognition in pigs has historically been poor in production settings - welfare-compromising procedures including castration, tail docking, and tooth clipping were performed without analgesia based on assumptions that piglets do not experience significant pain. Validated pain scales and physiological evidence have definitively refuted these assumptions. Welfare-conscious pig production provides appropriate analgesia for all painful procedures and implements monitoring protocols that identify pain in clinical recovery. The economic cost of analgesia is modest relative to the welfare benefit.