Welfarists target tail-docking
20 July 1999
Welfarists target tail-docking
By Johann Tasker
ANIMAL welfare campaigners are putting the final touches to a new initiative which will urge the government to ban livestock farmers from tail-docking piglets.
A new campaign will be launched tomorrow (Wednesday) when a new report on tail-docking is published by the pressure group Compassion in World Farming (CIWF).
The report, based on a scientific review by CIWFs own researchers, will condemn the practice as both “painful and unnecessary”.
Tail-docking, which involves slicing off part of the piglets tail with pliers or a hot docking iron, has long been a controversial operation.
Farmers have been banned from routinely tail-docking their piglets since the Welfare of Livestock Regulations was passed in 1994.
But the law does allow piglets to be tail-docked when there is evidence that tail-biting has occurred as a result of a failure to do so.
CIWF claims the exception is so broad that the ban on routine tail-docking is widely ignored, with 12 million or 75-80% of UK piglets tail-docked each year.
The group claims that the practice is painful and in some cases can cause the animals prolonged pain for many weeks.
“Humane alternative ways of preventing tail-biting are available,” said Peter Stevenson, CIWFs Political and Legal Director.
Animal welfare campaigners claim piglets are likely to bite each others tails if they are unable to perform their natural behaviours of rooting, foraging and exploring.
They believe tail-biting should be prevented not by docking, but by improving the conditions in which pigs are kept and giving them straw to root and chew.
“Tail-biting is a sure sign that something is wrong with the farming system,” said Mr Stevenson.
“It should be prevented not by tail-docking but by abandoning factory farming and instead rearing the pigs in good conditions.”
The National Farmers Union said that although the practice may seem cruel, it was completed as quickly and painlessly as possible.
Tail-docking reduces the risk of injury from other animals within the group, said the union.
Jane Guise, director of Cambac Research, is currently investigating different welfare-friendly methods of keeping newly-born pigs on farms.
It was a mistake for animal welfare campaigners to believe that tail-biting was solely associated with intensive production systems, she said.
“It is a myth that straw-based systems are a solution.”
Ms Guise said more research was needed to help solve the problem of tail-biting which had been observed in pigs for more than 100 years – well before the animals were intensively farmed.