The post-weaning nursery period is among the highest welfare-risk phases for pigs — weaning stress, pathogen exposure, and dietary transition interact to cause significant suffering without careful management.
The nursery period combines multiple simultaneous stressors for weaned piglets. Sudden maternal separation, housing change, mixing with unfamiliar pigs, diet change from milk to solid food, and pathogen exposure all occur within days. Post-weaning diarrhoea causes dehydration, electrolyte imbalance, and death without treatment. Belly nosing — a redirected suckling behaviour — indicates persistence of nursing drive beyond weaning. Reducing stressor overlap through gradual dietary transition and litter-intact housing improves welfare outcomes.