Providing effective enrichment materials to pigs is both a legal requirement in many jurisdictions and a practical welfare intervention, but not all materials are equally effective.
The gap between the letter and the spirit of pig enrichment requirements is significant. Providing a hanging chain satisfies the legal requirement in some interpretations but does little to address the rooting and exploratory motivations that drive tail biting. Pigs are motivated by novelty and organic materials that change, yield, and reward investigation. Straw, hay, root vegetables, and wood blocks all outperform chains in enrichment preference tests. The barrier to providing effective enrichment is often logistical — straw management in fully slatted systems is genuinely challenging — but solutions including point-of-delivery straw dispensers demonstrate that logistical barriers are manageable when welfare is prioritised. Enforcement of enrichment quality rather than just provision is the regulatory gap that most needs addressing.