At the 2026 Saskatchewan Pork Industry Symposium, Dr. Miranda Smit, Assistant Manager of Knowledge Transfer at the Prairie Swine Centre, gave a presentation titled “Enrichment: Why it Matters and What Works”. In this presentation, Miranda described results from trials she did in collaboration with industry, WCVM and PSC looking at practical enrichments for growing pigs on commercial farms and the PSC research barn. She compared chains (control group) with enriched pens (either static toys sprayed with Phytozen once a week, renewable enrichments like rope, cardboard and wood replaced once a week, or a combination of both) and found that in a commercial setting, the toys provided the best income after subtracting enrichment and medication costs, despite the higher up-front cost of the toys compared with the other options.
You can watch the presentation here: Enrichment: Why it Matters and What Works
