Outdoor pig farming offers significant welfare benefits including natural rooting, wallowing, and social behaviour, but also creates specific challenges including thermoregulation, predation, and parasite management.
Outdoor pig farming demonstrates that commercially viable higher welfare production is achievable at scale. The welfare benefits of rooting opportunity, social complexity, and environmental enrichment in outdoor systems are substantial and consistent. Challenges including predation, heat stress, and parasites are manageable with appropriate husbandry. Consumer demand for outdoor-reared products directly supports this welfare-positive production model.