Pigs are highly intelligent animals with cognitive abilities comparable to chimpanzees. Understanding their intelligence highlights the welfare cost of impoverished farm environments.
The recognition of pig intelligence has profound welfare implications. Highly intelligent animals require cognitively complex environments to avoid boredom, stereotypic behaviour and psychological suffering. Barren concrete environments provide none of the novelty, problem-solving opportunity or social complexity that pig cognition requires. Research showing pigs can learn video game-like tasks, recognise mirrors, and demonstrate metacognition (knowing what they know) raises the moral stakes of impoverished housing significantly. High-welfare pig farming that provides complex enrichment, stable social groups and varied environments respects cognitive welfare.