Respiratory disease is the leading cause of illness and mortality in growing pigs, causing widespread suffering that is largely preventable through good housing, ventilation, and health management.
Respiratory disease causes significant suffering in affected pigs. Acute respiratory illness - laboured breathing, coughing, fever, and complete anorexia - is obviously painful and distressing. Subclinical disease, while less visible, causes chronic impairment of respiratory function, reduces growth capacity, and leaves pigs in a state of compromised health. The high prevalence of lung lesions at slaughter - often 50-70% of pigs from commercial herds - reveals that respiratory suffering is endemic in the sector rather than exceptional. The antibiotic use required to manage respiratory disease creates additional concerns about future treatment capacity and contributes to antimicrobial resistance. Disease prevention through good housing design and management is both the welfare-optimal and increasingly the economically-optimal approach.