Pig Weaning Welfare 2025: Science and Best Practice

Key Welfare Facts

Early weaning of piglets at 21 days or younger causes significant acute welfare compromise from maternal separation.
Piglets at weaning face multiple simultaneous stressors including separation, social mixing, and diet transition.
EU legislation prohibiting weaning before 28 days unless welfare criteria are met provides partial protection.
Weaning age significantly affects post-weaning disease incidence, with earlier weaning increasing gut health problems.
Gradual feed transition and creep feeding before weaning reduces the dietary shock of abrupt milk-to-solid change.
Social bonding and familiar pen-mates reduce post-weaning aggression that causes injury and welfare compromise.

Welfare Assessment

Pig weaning welfare requires minimising the multiple simultaneous stressors imposed at weaning. Older weaning age, familiar social groups, gradual dietary transition, and enriched housing post-weaning significantly reduce the welfare impact of this critical production event.

What You Can Do

Support certification schemes requiring weaning age of 28 days or older in pig production
Choose pork from farms with documented gradual dietary transition protocols at weaning
Advocate for legislative strengthening of minimum weaning age requirements in all markets
Support research into welfare indicators for post-weaning adaptation in commercial pig systems