Positive welfare science for pigs has identified indicators of good quality of life beyond absence of disease. These indicators guide farmers toward genuinely enriched pig lives.
Positive pig welfare science has advanced rapidly, providing farmers with concrete indicators that go beyond health metrics to assess quality of life. Play behavior - both object play and social play - is particularly valuable as a positive welfare indicator, because it requires animals to be free from fear, pain, and deprivation. Farms that provide good enrichment, appropriate stocking density, and stable social groups show measurably higher play rates. Cognitive bias testing has confirmed that pigs in better welfare conditions show more optimistic responses to ambiguous stimuli. This scientific framework gives farmers objective targets for genuinely enriched pig lives rather than simply minimizing harm.