The Issue Of Routine Tail Docking Inside UK Pig Farms

UK Pig Farming: An Overview 

Approximately ten million pigs are slaughtered in the UK every year, with the vast majority living on intensive factory farms. 

Pigs on factory farms typically undergo mutilations, such as teeth clipping and tail docking and suffer from several animal welfare issues. These include confinement in farrowing crates, where mother pigs are kept before, during and for weeks after giving birth without being able to move or turn around. 

UK Pig Farming: The Issue Of Tail Docking

Tail docking is a common practice in UK pig farms and causes extreme suffering to pigs. It is carried out without anaesthetic by farmers, often when the piglet is only 1-3 days old, to prevent pigs confined together from biting each other’s tails. This behaviour can result from boredom, frustration, disease, and lack of space and enrichment (regular provision of dynamic environments, cognitive challenges and social opportunities). 

According to UK law, tail docking must only be conducted when other methods to prevent tail biting, such as enrichment, have been unsuccessful. However, according to our new report, compiled with The Animal Law Foundation, routine tail docking is carried out on over 70% of UK pig farms. 

Routine tail docking is not permitted. Tail docking should only be used as a last resort, after improvements to the pigs’ environment and management have proved ineffectual in preventing tail biting.

Section 124, Defra’s Code of Practice for the Welfare of Pigs

Besides being extremely painful and causing a lot of stress to pigs, tail docking can cause infections that can leave lasting pain for the animals. 

This issue is exacerbated by the number of pigs that are housed in factory farms with inadequate space and enrichment. The number of industrial-sized pig farms, in fact, is continuing to rise in the UK, with currently close to 2,000 across the UK, each often housing a minimum of 2,000 pigs.

Even when pigs have their tails cut off, biting of the remaining tail stump can still happen because the animals are so stressed by their unnatural environment. Many piglets develop neuromas where the stump becomes a ball of tangled nerves. This causes a phantom limb which continues to cause them pain throughout their entire lives.

The Issue of Tail Docking: Our Findings 

In our report, alongside The Animal Law Foundation, we found that – between 2013-2017-  71% of pigs in the UK had their tails docked. This means that the current legal requirement that only permits tail docking as a last resort is currently not being followed. 

In 2017, Animal Equality investigators filmed inside four British pig farms across a two-month period. Tail docking was routinely carried out on all four farms. Tail docking was also documented in our latest investigation inside a Scottish pig farm, which we released in April 2021. 

The problem is worsened by inadequate record-keeping and a lack of inspections on farms up and down the UK. Our joint report in fact shows that on average fewer than 3% of UK farms are inspected by an official regulatory body each year. This means that 97 of every 100 farms are not formally inspected. 

The serious lack of oversight inside farms and slaughterhouses is a matter of national urgency. The UK claims to be a nation of animal lovers, with some of the highest welfare standards in the world,  farms are not frequently inspected, leaving the opportunity for animal abuse to go entirely undetected. 

Animal Equality has launched a petition demanding that the UK Government puts into place a more robust system, where more regular inspections are carried out inside farms and slaughterhouses, and where facilities that do not pass the inspection are not allowed to operate. 

Join us in demanding that animal abusers are held accountable. Add your name below: 

Over an 11 year period, Animal Equality UK has investigated 43 farms and slaughterhouses, finding prolonged animal suffering, deliberate abuse or neglect, and/or illegality taking place every single time. Animal Equality’s evidentiary footage, spanning over a decade, is a growing indictment of this failing industry.

The Government must work with Animal Equality to put in place critical changes to the legal framework, including the following:

• Implement a licensing system for farms; 
• Breaches of licences will result in non renewal and prosecution; 
• Inspections required for licence renewal which will be at least every 1-3 years, depending on the farm’s size;
• Those inspections must be robust and occasionally unannounced;
• Appropriate penalties for all farms found not complying with their licences and the law.

Laws are broken time and time again. On every pig farm Animal Equality UK has ever visited pigs have been routinely tail-docked; over a six year period we visited four dairy farms and on each we found severe animal suffering and illegality; and in a sheep slaughterhouse we discovered a Food Standards Agency inspector giving their nod of approval for clear non-compliance. Our investigators have looked into facilities accredited by Red Tractor, Quality Meat Scotland, Best Aquaculture Practices, The Soil Association and more, documenting illegality across the board.

This doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface. With over 300,000 slaughterhouses in the UK, it is not possible for Animal Equality to visit every single facility. How many animals will suffer the same cruelty behind closed doors?

The public puts its faith in accreditation schemes, awards and Government and local authorities, but consumers are being conned. 

Public body inspections are few and far between. Crimes to farmed animals are rarely detected due to the current low levels of inspection. With the Animal Plant and Health Agency (APHA) inspecting just 0.5% of farms each year this means if every farm was to be inspected it would take 200 years. However, the reality is that some farms may never be inspected.

Non-compliance is rife. Where APHA inspections do occur, 25% identify non-compliance with animal welfare regulations and inspectors directly observe animals suffering ‘unnecessarily’ in one in 20 visits to uncertified farms. 

Consequences are all but non-existent. When wrongdoing is detected it is too often left to the charities to apply the necessary pressure and ensure action is taken. Between 2017-2019 there were 80 convictions of cruelty to farmed animals under the Animal Welfare Act 2006, compared to 2,662 for dogs. Considering that over one billion animals are farmed and slaughtered each year in the UK, this number of convictions is extremely low. This lack of action is failing to disincentivise legal violations on farms.

The Government and local authorities must end their overreliance on charities, take ownership, and hold animal abusers accountable for their actions.
The current regulatory framework is a wholly inadequate safeguard to ensure legal compliance. It is simply not fit for purpose. Already vulnerable farmed animals are being left at the whims of an industry that wants only to commoditise them.

We, the undersigned, are calling for improved monitoring and enforcement of existing animal welfare laws and for increased legal protections to be put in place for farmed land and aquatic animals. 

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