Accurate pain recognition in pigs is essential for appropriate analgesia and welfare monitoring, with validated assessment tools improving detection of previously unrecognized suffering.
Pain recognition in pigs represents a welfare gap between what science can measure and what is routinely assessed in commercial practice. Pig stoicism in group settings means that painful conditions including lameness, gastric ulcers, and post-procedural pain may go unrecognized and untreated. The development and validation of the Pig Grimace Scale and similar tools provides objective criteria for assessment, but their uptake in commercial settings requires training investment and management commitment. The welfare benefit of systematic pain monitoring - enabling earlier identification and treatment of painful conditions affecting millions of animals - justifies the training investment required for implementation.