Research demonstrates that pigs show emotional contagion and empathy-like responses to distressed companions, revealing social-emotional complexity that profoundly affects how we should consider farm housing systems.
Emotional contagion in pigs means that the welfare state of one animal in a group affects others. This has profound implications for how we think about farm animal welfare — individual suffering is not contained to one animal but spreads through social networks. Housing systems that cause chronic fear, pain, or frustration in some individuals compromise the welfare of the entire group through emotional transmission. Conversely, positive handling and enrichment that improves one animal may benefit those around it. Welfare is genuinely social in pigs, and assessments must account for group-level emotional climate.