The trend in swine production during the last 50 years, in North America, has been to move away from outdoor, open, dirt-lot systems to a totally confined systems. The economy of scale offers farmers a significant income on a commodity that provides little revenue on an individual pig basis. There are several important differences in the two production methods in terms of swine welfare. The outdoor system typically provides a greater amount of space per pig and thus allows swine the freedom to move and choose an environment. The outdoor systems offers several disadvantages as well. Pigs may be exposed to environmental temperature extreme that could negatively affect their welfare and could be challenged with disease that cannot be eradicated from the soil. The move to a confinement system has helped to eliminate the welfare concerns of thermal stress and disease that challenge outdoor swine. Because total confinement systems are expensive to build and maintain compared to less intensive systems the producers have become interested in an inexpensive alternative: hoop structures (Hoop) recently. The hoop use bedding to keep the pig dry and allow this bedding to compost beneath the pigs to keep them warm in the winter. This study compared the behaviour and physiology of pigs in a nonbedded confinement system (NBCS) with those in the hoop. Two experiments, 1 in the winter and 1 in the summer, assessed the welfare of pigs based on the incidence of aberrant behaviour, physiology responses to handling, incidence of lameness, and the performance of play behaviour. Pigs raised in NBCS performed more aberrant behaviours and less play behaviour, had greater plasma cortisol response to handling (but fewer vocalizations), and a greater incidence of injuries than did the pigs raised in Hoop. Based on these data, pigs in the Hoop were adjudged to have enhanced welfare as compared to pigs raised in the NBCS. Because the welfare of pigs in the Hoop appears to be greater than the welfare of pigs raised in the NBCS, future research should be determined which factors are most important to pigs and then try to incorporate these into production systems.