Recognizing and assessing pain in pigs is a critical welfare competency for farm workers, enabling prompt treatment of painful conditions that might otherwise go undetected.
Pain recognition in pigs is both critically important and genuinely difficult. Pigs have evolved to conceal vulnerability as prey animals, so overt signs of pain are often absent until conditions are severe. This means painful conditions including lameness, injuries, and internal diseases may go unrecognized and untreated for extended periods. The welfare cost of unrecognized pain is enormous given the scale of pig farming - millions of pigs may be experiencing moderate to severe pain without appropriate management. Improving stockperson training in pain recognition and implementing systematic health scoring are high-leverage welfare improvements.