ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Anim. Sci.
Sec. Animal Welfare and Policy
Welfare, behavior, and housing conditions of pigs, considering the basic attitudes of pig farmers in Germany
Provisionally accepted
- Working Group for Applied Ethology and Animal Behavior Therapy, Justus-Liebig-Universitat Giessen, Giessen, Germany
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This study examines the relationship between livestock farmers' attitudes toward their pigs and the pigs'welfare, housing conditions, and occurrence of behavioral abnormalities and health problems. The existing system of livestock farming in Germany has been the subject of considerable criticism due to the conflict between economic goals and ethical standards. The changing relationship between humans and livestock has led to tensions, with animal welfare and ethics becoming the focus of social debate (Spiller et al., 2015). In agriculture, the relationship between humans and livestock is unbalanced and characterized by the superiority of humans (Wildraut and Mergenthaler, 2020). Despite the existence of studies that examine the human-animal relationship with regard to species-appropriate animal husbandry and the welfare of farm animals, the present study focuses on the association of pig farmers' basic attitudes on the behavior and welfare of pigs and the respective housing conditions. This study aims to investigate the relationship between the basic attitudes of livestock farmers, the behavior of pigs, husbandry conditions, disease incidence, and the relationship between humans and pigs. The underlying hypothesis of the study is that there is a significant correlation between the basic attitude of pig farmers and the behavior of the pigs, the housing conditions, the occurrence of diseases, and human-animal relationships. In order to respond to the research question, a quantitative study was conducted in the form of an anonymous online survey of 485 German pig farmers. The results of the study indicate the presence of three basic attitudes among pig farmers that can be traced back to Kellert (1976): utilitarian, emotional, and a combination of utilitarianism, naturalism, and moralism. Furthermore, the results indicate that there are statistical correlations between the attitudes of livestock farmers and certain behaviors and the health status of pigs. It was found that pigs kept by livestock farmers with a utilitarian attitude showed significantly more signs of abnormal and defensive behavior and health problems than pigs kept by livestock farmers with an emotional attitude. The results of this study contribute to our understanding of pig welfare by highlighting correlations between behavior, health, human-animal relationships, and housing conditions.
Keywords: pig farming1, Animal welfare2, abnormal behavior3, farm husbandry4, human-livestock relationship5
Received: 21 Jun 2025; Accepted: 24 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Gebert and Kuhne. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Julia Gebert, j.sohm@gmx.de
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