Despite strong evidence for enrichment benefits, implementation gaps between research findings and commercial farm practice remain a major barrier to pig welfare improvement.
The gap between enrichment science and practice is one of the most frustrating welfare challenges in pig farming. Research clearly demonstrates that complex substrate enrichment dramatically reduces tail biting and other welfare indicators, yet most commercial farms provide minimal plastic chains that have negligible behavioral impact. The barriers are real - straw conflicts with slatted floor management systems common in intensive farming - but partial solutions exist. Farmer education about animal sentience and welfare science changes attitudes that in turn change management practice more reliably than compliance pressure alone.