Piggery employees understood that euthanasia
was a humane management option as long as
they perceived the individual animal to be suffering
(Matthis, 2004). Despite this, employees expressed
a lack of confidence in their ability to assess when
euthanasia is required (Matthis, 2004; Morrow et al.,
2010; Millman, 2012). Conditions on farm reported
by Millman (2012) indicate that the euthanasia of pigs
may be delayed as a result of this, and animal suffering
may be prolonged as a result. In another study, producers
reported that the visual assessment of pigs was
one of the most common ways by which pig wellbeing
was assessed on farm (Wilson et al., 2014), and it
is likely that this contributes to employee uncertainty.