Pigs are among the most intelligent farm animals, but conventional farming systems fail to meet their complex cognitive and behavioral needs.
The cognitive sophistication of pigs makes the environmental deprivation of conventional farming particularly troubling from a welfare perspective. Pigs have been shown to have mental capabilities that in other species would prompt much greater concern about the ethics of confinement. In barren concrete pens without enrichment, pigs suffer from boredom and frustration that manifests in damaging behaviors including tail biting - a major welfare problem that becomes self-reinforcing as injured tails bleed and attract further biting. Providing environmental enrichment - rooting materials, objects to manipulate, varied substrates - dramatically reduces these problems by allowing pigs to express natural foraging behaviors. The provision of adequate enrichment is both ethically required and economically beneficial in reducing tail-biting losses.