Farm Animal Welfare

Pig Routine Health Monitoring and Welfare

Systematic routine health monitoring provides early warning of welfare problems allowing intervention before suffering becomes severe.

Key Facts

Daily walk-through observations identify sick, injured, and lame animals
Body condition scoring at key life stages provides welfare trend data
Mortality and treatment records enable performance benchmarking
Slaughter feedback on pneumonia and pleuritis lesions indicates herd respiratory health
Digital health recording systems improve consistency and enable analysis

Welfare Considerations

Routine health monitoring is the foundation of proactive welfare management. Without systematic observation, welfare problems accumulate undetected until they are severe. Training farm staff in systematic observation and recording, combined with effective action protocols for animals identified as needing attention, translates monitoring into welfare improvement.

What You Can Do

Support daily health observation requirements in pig welfare codes
Advocate for slaughter feedback systems to inform farm-level welfare assessment
Share systematic health monitoring resources with pig producers