Swine welfare
What is it, how can it benefit you and how to implement it?
By Martyna E. Lagoda, Jen-Yun Chou, Yolande M. Seddon, Kurt Preugschas and Nicolas Herrera
This year’s Banff Pork Seminar, Canada, featured, for the first time, an entire session dedicated to swine welfare. This reflects the growing appreciation for the importance of animal welfare from the swine industry, and the value that good animal welfare can have in providing an economic and a societal acceptance boost to the swine industry. The session provided a platform for scientists, vets and industry personnel to discuss animal welfare in practice, facilitating peer-to-peer learning to uncover the best opportunities for proactively improving swine welfare for different parties.
Opening the session, Martyna Lagoda, postdoctoral fellow from the Western College of Veterinary Medicine, University of Saskatchewan Swine Behavior and Welfare group introduced the topic of animal welfare by outlining definitions and frameworks available to define and assess animal welfare. The most commonly used definition of animal welfare refers to the physical and psychological state of an individual animal in relation to its environment, and failure or difficulty in coping with that environment are indicators of compromised animal welfare. Yet, a tendency remains to judge an animal’s welfare based on physical characteristics alone, e.g. lameness, clinical symptoms of disease, poor body condition, or the lack of appropriate resources (feed, water, climatic conditions).
Hence, a key point stressed as part of the opening remarks was the importance of including psychological wellbeing in the assessment of welfare to gain a full picture of an individual’s welfare state. An example of a psychological state is the display of stereotypic behaviors such as sham chewing and bar biting in sows. These behaviors reflect frustration and stress, often resulting from restriction of movement (i.e. in stall housing), chronic hunger, and also the inability to perform natural, highly motivated behaviors such as rooting, foraging and the associated ingestion of food in pigs.
Moreover, understanding the need for more consideration of the psychological states of animals is timely, given the global shift in societal attitudes. Lagoda explained that modern consumers are becoming more environmentally aware and health-conscious, increasingly seeking safe, healthy and ethically produced food with more importance being placed upon the quality of life and the inclusion of positive experiences to achieve good welfare standards for animals.
Such societal attitudes are also becoming more pronounced in Canada and the United States, reflected by publicly approved state legislations such as Prop 12. Improving on-farm welfare is therefore of high priority for the global pig industry to maintain the social license of pig production, improve transparency and maximize the production efficiency and sustainability of farm operations; good welfare goes hand in hand with improved productivity. This is reflected in the greater number of producers incorporating welfare-oriented practices daily within their systems.
However, this increasingly positive view of on-farm welfare is not only motivated by the expectation to uphold good welfare practices as prescribed by regulations and Codes of Practice, but also by the increasing understanding of the importance of welfare, and an appreciation for the animal productivity and farm efficiency benefits which result when welfare is embraced, and which can lead to market and economic opportunities. The idea that healthy, psychologically-sound animals raised to high welfare standards produce higher quality meat products is now supported by scientific research. Lagoda described the detrimental effects of the stress response as a consequence of compromised welfare on pig productivity through the redirection of energy resources away from growth towards processes ensuring survival, compromised immune response and thus increased disease susceptibility and a greater need for antimicrobial treatments.
Supporting welfare through both physical health and psychological wellbeing is therefore beneficial for producers and animals alike, and there are several solutions available to producers to achieve this. One of the examples presented by Lagoda included the provision of nesting material to sows prior to farrowing to satisfy their motivation to build a nest, with benefits for outcomes such as reduced farrowing duration, improved maternal care behavior, and also piglet behavior development (i.e. learning and a reduction in oral manipulation of pen mates).
Because animal welfare is a multifaceted concept where different stakeholders place varying levels of emphasis on the biological functioning and affective states and the freedom to express species-specific behaviors by animals, fostering conversations between all stakeholders within and surrounding the pig industry is important to bring together different perspectives on the topic. A multi-stakeholder approach that focuses on all aspects of welfare is one that can facilitate progress in welfare improvements, and aligns with the current global trends, perceptions and changes in consumer expectations on how animals should be raised and treated. The animal welfare session hosted during the 2025 Banff Pork Seminar was designed to reflect this view, with presentations also delivered by a producer and a veterinarian, representing the perspectives of different stakeholders.
Welfare and health: a veterinarian’s perspective Veterinarians are the frontline practitioners who deal with issues of animal health on farms, both urgent and routine management. Usually, when a vet is called to the farm, there are a range of questions that are waiting to be answered. Animal health and disease risks are the top priorities, but producers also seek advice on animal welfare from their veterinarians who are a trusted source of information. In turn, vets are also tasked with supporting their clients to meet animal care requirements as laid out by the Code of Practice. As different components of animal welfare may be conflicting – e.g., tail docking is a painful procedure for the pigs, and it prevents pigs from maintaining their body integrity and full behavioral expression, but it can reduce the risk of tail biting and therefore reduce risks of injuries, infection and pain from being tail bitten, it is not always easy to find the best trade-off, and practicing veterinarians are constantly faced with such dilemmas.
A veterinarian, Kurt Preugschas of Precision Veterinary Services provided an insight into approaching these difficult dilemmas, and how we can better support practical and realistic implementation of welfare-improving practices backed by scientific evidence. As an example, Preugschas encouraged producers to optimize the pre-weaning environment by providing piglets with socialization opportunities and additional space for social interactions, achieved by removing the divider between two farrowing crates in the first week of life, after 24hrs of age to ensure colostrum intake by the litters. On three farms that implemented this strategy, a notable improvement in the pre-weaning mortality (a reduction of 1.5 – 1.9%) was recorded, which could potentially translate to a $11.25 gain per sow (based on average reduction in mortality of 1.67%), assuming that a 1% pre-weaning mortality costs a producer $6.75/sow (units in CAD).
Preugschas also provided examples of environmental enrichment strategies that have been adopted by farms, including the provision of chewable and rootable pig toys to express natural exploratory behaviors, increased positive human contact by walking pens and playing music to pigs, reducing reactivity, stress and fear. Preugschas also discussed the benefits of providing nonsteroidal anti-inflammatories to sows with a rectal temperature >39.5°C 1 day post farrowing. Treatment with Meloxicam for 3 x days reduced rectal temperature, reduced pre-weaning mortality by 2.74% and increased the number of weaned piglets (0.34%); a 2.8:1 return on investment. Ultimately, Preugschas stressed that “prevention is better than cure” and highlighted the importance of welfare as a component of preventive medicine strategies, by drawing on the links between good welfare and animal health and productivity.
Welfare in action: the perspective of producers Canadian pig producers voluntarily adhere to the guidance on animal care as part of the national Codes of Practice for the Care and Handling of Pigs, as part of the national Canadian Pork Excellence on-farm assurance program, which covers 97% of pigs raised and slaughtered in Canada. Animal care is a component of good animal welfare practice. This means that the minimum standards of animal welfare are already being promoted and implemented on farms in accordance with animal care requirements.
However, producers are often faced with competing agendas such as volatile profit margins, competing welfare and production priorities, and disease risks, and at the same time need to maintain a good level of productivity, which can delay uptake of higher welfare practices. Furthermore, a good knowledge exchange model is also pivotal in communicating welfare issues with producers.
During the animal welfare session, a Canadian producer, Nicolas Herrera, Bachelor of Science in Agriculture of Sunterra Farms, who runs a 1,400 sow to nursery operation with five full-time employees, shared his first-hand experience, tips and advice on management strategies to facilitate the implementation of high welfare practices on farm, in the face of common everyday challenges faced by pork production systems. This included a discussion on effective management of loose sow gestation housing and the implementation of staff training for good animal handling. Herrera explained the importance of creating a culture of animal care, low stress handling and supporting continual staff training to uphold standards and navigate challenges. Displaying this, within his team, they hold a monthly animal handling meeting to go over strategies and approaches for both sows and piglets. Such has been the success of teaching staff good handling approaches, the barn ceased to have electric prods on site since 2015, and the movement of animals is achieved calmly and efficiently with the correct application of pressure and release approaches.
Herrera emphasized the importance of developing positive relationships between gilts and stockpeople from an early age. He gave an example of a real-life benefit of this strategy, namely, sows that are much easier to move and load into farrowing crates throughout their lives. Herrera believes that the key to success in pen housing lies on attention to detail, ensuring sows are grouped by size/age and walking every pen at least twice a day, in order to provide enrichment for sows as well as spotting heath issues that may require intervention in a timely manner, this also aids on getting sows used to positive human contact.
Reiterating concepts illustrated by Preugschas, Herrera and team also implement enrichment for sows in group-housing, providing empty, clean plastic jugs as play items, upon mixing of a new group of animals and/or the use of Phytozen or FerAppease upon mixing gilts into new groups. Phytozen, an animal health product comprising of a blend of essential oils and botanical extracts, has a proven calming effect on pigs by increasing serotonin levels. The use of “FerAppease’’ has been implemented upon mixing large groups of gilts, and has offered the best method to reduce fighting between pen mates. The Sunterra team also reduce the stress of weaning by removing the divider between farrowing pens, allowing piglets a way out of the crate free of any obstacles, improving greatly “piglet flow’’ out of the crate. Herrera concluded on a positive note, stating that the implementation of staff training to raise awareness of animal welfare has created “a culture of animal welfare-minded team members, who really care about providing our animals with the best care possible within our system”.
The science of animal welfare - How can it benefit you? In a joint presentation, Jen Yun-Chou, research scientist – ethology at the Prairie Swine Centre (PSC), and Yolande Seddon, associate professor and research chair in swine welfare at the Western College of Veterinary Medicine, University of Saskatchewan provided a summary of the research planned and conducted by both groups, with an insight on how this work aligns with the current welfare priorities and challenges as they relate to the swine industry and beyond.
Through decades of development, animal welfare science has now evolved as an established discipline globally. This has been demonstrated in its presence in higher education worldwide and supported by professional societies. Chou highlighted animal welfare science’s close connections with other disciplines and how it is deeply rooted in Canadian universities as well. Animal welfare scientists provide evidence to develop objective tools to measure and monitor animal welfare, discuss animal management practices with the stakeholders that are good for welfare and also good for business operation goals, and help the industry to improve animal welfare, meeting societal expectations.
As the industry faces new challenges and pressures, the role of animal welfare scientists has become increasingly vital. These scientists provide timely scientific input to develop practical solutions and guide industry decision-making. As an example, Chou presented on the PSC Knowledge Transfer team’s upcoming research collaboration with a major integrator to test practical enrichment provision on commercial farms and measure the benefit for the pig and producer.
Additionally, Chou presented the ongoing work of a graduate student’s MSc thesis, namely a comparison of production data between group and stall housed sow herds, with an added aim to determine the relationship between ESF feeding behavior patterns, performance and sow social behavior in group herds. This research will be built upon to further identify interventions to improve gilt retention in ESF systems on commercial farms, including an economic analysis to compare housing systems and interventions.
This work is pertinent and topical in the context of the imminent 2029 deadline for the transition to group sow housing in Canada, given that sow mortality is observed to be higher on farms transitioning to group housing. Moreover, as the global trend for less confinement for farmed animals becomes increasingly prominent, the PSC’s next step is to lead the way in investigating loose sow lactation housing and its possible benefits and pitfalls.
Work from the University of Saskatchewan (U of S) Swine Welfare and Ethology group conducted as part of the NSERC Industrial Research Chair (IRC) in Swine Welfare program, and presented by Seddon during the 2025 Banff Pork Seminar animal welfare session investigated methods of supporting pig welfare in fully-slatted intensive production systems through the incorporation of welfare enhancing management modifications and enrichment routines. More specifically, pigs were provided with welfare enhancing management modifications early in life in the form of chewable materials to facilitate natural behaviors such as mastication and foraging, additional space to encourage healthy development of social behaviors, and regular neutral human touch and contact to foster positive human-pig relationships to reduce the fear of humans. Implementation of such interventions improved overall productivity of pigs, with increases in their average daily gain in the nursery stage and during lifetime.
Pigs raised with management modifications also had reduced skin lesions at mixing, suggesting improved social skills, and were less reactive and easier to handle, reflective of a reduced fear of humans. Reductions in the proportion of bitten tails were also recorded, suggestive of the beneficial impacts of the chewable material access which likely provided pigs with an outlet for the redirection of damaging oral behaviors away from pen mates.
The NSERC IRC in Swine Welfare program also investigated the potential of play behavior stimulation in pigs to positively impact productivity, health and welfare metrics. The ability to trigger and sustain play behavior in growing pigs housed in fully-slatted systems was confirmed using a rotation of novel enrichment items and additional space. Moreover, using heart rate variability and measures of affective state such as a cognitive bias test, play was confirmed to be a pleasurable, positive experience for pigs. Pigs housed with this treatment were subjected to a PRRS virus challenge to determine the effects of play behavior on pig productivity and health. The results showed pigs reared with play opportunities had a reduction in skin lesions following mixing for transport, likely a consequence of an improved social ability for conflict resolution. P
lay pigs cleared the PRRS virus at the same rate as control pigs, but showed an improved average daily gain during challenge, and a mediated, but effective immune response, suggesting a lower inflammatory response. Pigs provided with play opportunities displayed less sickness behavior and remained active throughout the infection period, and showed fewer clinical signs such as respiratory distress when compared to pigs reared without play opportunities. This work provides clear evidence for the links between good welfare and improved productivity of pigs and strengthens the case for the need to embrace welfare on-farm.
The NSERC IRC in Swine Welfare program developed tools for an objective welfare assessment, both in the form of physiological biomarkers of stress and welfare (i.e. hormones such as cortisol and DHEA) which can be collected from animals, and in the form of a computer vision system for the scoring of animal-based welfare indicators on pig carcasses at slaughter as a retrospective measure of welfare experienced by pigs in life. These tools provide an objective, accurate measure of welfare states, and thus support the pig industry to assess and monitor welfare in their systems more effectively. This is important, as it equips the industry with data as a form of feedback on the contribution of different management practices to welfare, facilitates informed decision-making, and provides a basis for conversations on improved welfare practices through peer-to-peer learning. It also supports the industry to report on the welfare of their animals, thus aligning with societal expectations surrounding the transparency of the pig industry.
Seddon also provided an update on the adoption trials planned by the U of S Swine Welfare and Ethology group whereby welfare enhancing management modifications including the delivery of effective and practical enrichment routines and play opportunities, as well as the computer vision system for the assessment of welfare at slaughter will be tested under commercial farm conditions. This will allow to determine the scalability of these concepts and will support tangible uptake of welfare improvement practices by the industry.
The research described is a testament to the crucial infrastructure provided by both the PSC and the U of S groups in the form of research expertise and an understanding of the pig industry’s needs for the delivery of robust scientific evidence needed to support decisions around welfare improvements in pig production in a manner that is proactive, effective, and achievable for the industry. Working together, the goal of each group is the creation of knowledge to bring about positive welfare improvements for animals which benefit producers in terms of farm productivity and profitability in the long term.
Conclusion There is no doubt that good welfare benefits the animals and producers alike. However, welfare is a multifaceted concept which can be difficult to implement in practice in the face of the multiple challenges experienced by the pig industry.
Although there is a strong scientific understanding of welfare issues and numerous science-based strategies for the improvement of welfare, multi-directional dialogue between all relevant stakeholders is essential – not only to support the translation of knowledge into practice, but also to ensure that stakeholders’ perspectives are considered in the development and implementation of effective, context-sensitive solutions. The 2025 Banff Pork Seminar session on animal welfare was a success in creating such a platform for the exchange of perspectives, ideas, and for peer-to-peer learning between multiple stakeholders to brainstorm for the best welfare opportunities for different parties. We look forward to more of these occasions in the future.
References: Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, 2011. Market analysis report: Socially conscious consumer trends: animal welfare. October 2011. Online access: https://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2011/agr/A74-2-10-2011-eng.pdf
Albernaz-Gonçalves, R., Olmos Antillón, G. and Hötzel, M.J., 2022. Linking animal welfare and antibiotic use in pig farming—A review. Animals, 12(2), p.216.
Albernaz-Gonçalves, R., Olmos, G. and Hötzel, M.J., 2021. My pigs are ok, why change? Animal welfare accounts of pig farmers. Animal, 15(3), p.100154.
Bayne, K., 2010. Peer to Peer Interaction Promotes Implementation of the Three Rs and Harmonization of Animal Care and Use Programs. Alternatives to Animal Testing and Experimentation, 15(1), pp.1-5.
Boyle, L. & O’Driscoll, K. 2011. Animal welfare: an essential component in food safety and quality. Food Chain Integrity. Elsevier.
Broom, D.M., 2011. A history of animal welfare science. Acta biotheoretica, 59, pp.121-137.
Brunt, M.W., Ritter, C., LeBlanc, S. and Kelton, D., 2024. Perspectives of dairy farmers on positive welfare opportunities for dairy cows in Ontario, Canada. Frontiers in Animal Science, 5, p.1493796.
Code Technical Panel, 2020. Five-year review summary report Code of Practice for the Care and Handling of Pigs. Online access: https://www.nfacc.ca/pdfs/codes/public-comment-periods/pig/2019%20Pig%20code%20review%20CTP%20Summary%20Report_EN_final.pdf
Colditz, I.G., 2023. A biological integrity framework for describing animal welfare and wellbeing. Animal Production Science, 63(5), pp.423-440.
Dawkins, M. 2019. Animal welfare as preventative medicine. Animal Welfare, 28.
Ferri, F., Yepez, J., Ahadi, M., Wang, Y., Ko, R., Seddon, Y.M. and Ko, S.B., 2024. Enhancing welfare assessment: Automated detection and imaging of dorsal and lateral views of swine carcasses for identification of welfare indicators. Computers and Electronics in Agriculture, 222, p.109058.
Gueye, E.F., 2009. The role of networks in information dissemination to family poultry farmers. World's Poultry Science Journal, 65(1), pp.115-124.
Kapsdorferová, Z., Bogueva, D. and Marinova, D., 2024. Consumer Attitudes and Views on Sustainable Food Consumption. In Consumer Perceptions and Food (pp. 299-317). Singapore: Springer Nature Singapore.
Keeling, L., 2019. Indicators of good welfare. Encyclopaedia of Animal Behavior, 2nd ed.; Chun, CJ, Ed, pp.134-140.
Lassen, J., Sandøe, P. and Forkman, B., 2006. Happy pigs are dirty!–conflicting perspectives on animal welfare. Livestock Science, 103(3), pp.221-230.
Mellor, D.J., 2017. Operational details of the five domains model and its key applications to the assessment and management of animal welfare. Animals, 7(8), p.60.
National Farm Animal Care Council (NFACC), 2014. The Code of Practice for the Care and Handling of Pigs. Online access: https://www.nfacc.ca/pdfs/codes/pig_code_of_practice.pdf
Peden, R.S., Turner, S.P., Boyle, L.A. and Camerlink, I., 2018. The translation of animal welfare research into practice: The case of mixing aggression between pigs. Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 204, p.1-9.
Pinillos, R.G. ed., 2018. One welfare: A framework to improve animal welfare and human well-being. CAB international.
Steinerová, K., Harding, J.C., Parker, S.E., Wilson, H.L., Nery Finatto, A. and Seddon, Y.M., 2024a. Rearing pigs with play opportunities: the effects on disease resilience in pigs experimentally inoculated with PRRSV. Frontiers in Veterinary Science, 11, p.1460993.
Steinerová, K., Parker, S.E., Brown, J.A. and Seddon, Y.M., 2024b. The promotion of play behaviour in grow-finish pigs: The relationship between behaviours indicating positive experience and physiological measures. Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 275, p.106263.
Lagoda is a postdoctoral fellow and Seddon is an associate professor and research chair in swine welfare, both with the Western College of Veterinary Medicine, University of Saskatchewan; Chou is a research scientist – ethology at the Prairie Swine Centre; Preugschas is a veterinarian with Precision Veterinary Services; and Herrera is a producer with Sunterra Farms Ltd. Cover image courtesy of Herrera.
