Farm Animals

Farmed Pig Welfare: Measuring What Matters

Identifying and measuring the welfare outcomes that matter most to pigs guides research and intervention priorities.

Key Facts

Five Domains model identifies nutrition, environment, health, behaviour, and mental state
Welfare Quality developed validated indicators across all five domains for pigs commercially
Research shows that behaviour and mental state indicators capture welfare not reflected in other domains
Consumer-facing labels can communicate welfare outcomes through story and indicator combination

Welfare Considerations

Measuring welfare that matters to pigs - not just what is easy to measure - requires validated tools across all five domains including mental state. Positive welfare indicators including play, exploration, and positive anticipation capture aspects of pig welfare invisible to disease-focused assessment. What gets measured gets managed.

What You Can Do

Support welfare research organisations developing comprehensive pig welfare measurement tools
Advocate for positive welfare indicators alongside negative outcome measures in farm certification
Choose pork from farms measuring and improving across all five domains of pig welfare