Moving beyond the absence of suffering, positive welfare science identifies specific indicators that signal pigs are experiencing good lives - including play, exploration, and social harmony.
The shift toward positive welfare assessment in pig farming represents a major advance. Rather than only measuring the absence of disease or injury, positive welfare frameworks ask whether pigs are thriving. Signs like synchronous lying, playful locomotion, and social investigation indicate pigs are experiencing rewarding states. Farms actively pursuing positive welfare indicators are achieving better outcomes for animals and often for their own businesses.