Category Archives: Straw

Did European pig-welfare legislation reduce pig welfare? Perhaps not, but experts confirm that common indestructible materials are not proper enrichment for pigs at all, except perhaps for an enhanced novel branched-chains design.

Published as:
Marc B.M. Bracke and Paul Koene, 2019. Expert opinion on metal chains and other indestructible objects as proper enrichment for intensively-farmed pigs. PLOS ONE. Available at http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0212610.

EC Directive 2001/93 requires that all pigs have access to proper investigation and manipulation materials. Intensively farmed pigs in Europe are frequently provided with a short/bare metal chain with or without an indestructible object attached to the chain. To date authorities are regarding this as proper enrichment. However, it has become increasingly clear that the chains do not provide proper enrichment, and that adding an indestructible object such as a ball, pipe or hard wood to the end of the chain may even reduce pig welfare. To test this hypothesis an expert survey was conducted. In total 36 international experts, mostly pig-welfare scientists, responded to the survey.

The experts only marginally agreed with the hypothesis (agreement score 4.6 on average on a scale from 0-10). However, indestructible materials generally received very low scores for welfare, indicating they did not provide proper enrichment. Ranked from low to high average welfare score, the objects were grouped in 5 significance levels:

Level 5 (totally insufficient): Chain hanging too high (for most of the smallest pigs in the pen; average score 1.3 on a scale from 0 to 10 where 5.5 would be ‘acceptable’)

Level 4 (extremely insufficient): Short chain (3.1), Small ball (2.8) and Big ball (average 2.5)

Level 3: (very insufficient) Pipe (3.5) and Bare chain (3.3)

Level 2-3 (very/rather insufficient): Hard wood (3.7)

Level 2 (rather insufficient): Chain on the floor (average: 4.4)

Level 1 (almost sufficient): Branched chains (5.1)

Compared to the marginal enrichment provided before the EC Directive 2001/93 was implemented in 2007 (in the Netherlands generally a short/bare chain, scoring 3.1 and 3.3 respectively, i.e. Level 3-4), adding balls or pipe , as commonly done in The Netherlands and Germany, does not improve pig welfare. Hard wood, as practised esp. in the UK, is a most marginal improvement (only 0.4 higher on average than Bare chain). Chain on the floor scored a bit better (4.4), without being acceptable (set at 5.5). The ‘new’ Branched chains scored significantly better than all other indestructible materials and its welfare score (5.1 on average) was close to the pre-defined level of acceptability (5.5 on a scale from 0, worst, to 10, best). The welfare benefits of adding balls, pipes or hard wood to the metal chain were marginal, and well below what the experts considered acceptable enrichment. The branched-chains design, by contrast, appears to be the most viable alternative. It involves providing a longer chain, i.e. with the free end reaching to floor level, adding ‘branches’, i.e. several short chains ending at the nose height of the pigs, and providing more chains per pen (i.e. 1 branched chain per 5 pigs). Therefore, the implementation of current pig-enrichment legislation needs revision. Branched chains should be implemented widely (across the globe) and in the short term as a first step towards, and benchmark for, providing proper enrichment to intensively-farmed pigs.

See also the related publication and posts on this website:

Chains as enrichment for pigs (Book chapter with supplement)
Pig animation – Improved, branched chain design as proper enrichment for pigs
Branched chains as enrichment for pigs (technical description, pictures and video)
Proper enrichment for intensively-farmed pigs – From review to preview
A collection of pictures of other enrichment materials for pigs can be found here: Prize contest (Prijsvraag) 2011.
Do pigs play with chains? Science versus society

Original abstract of the PLOS ONE paper:

Marc B.M. Bracke and Paul Koene, 2019. Expert opinion on metal chains and other indestructible objects as proper enrichment for intensively-farmed pigs. PLOS ONE. Available at http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0212610.

Abstract

EC Directive 2001/93 requires that all pigs have access to proper investigation and manipulation materials. Intensively farmed pigs in Europe are frequently provided with a short metal chain with or without an indestructible object attached to the chain. To date authorities are regarding this as proper enrichment, perhaps with (in)direct reference to the RICHPIG model as a justification. However, it has become increasingly clear that the chains do not provide proper enrichment, and that adding an indestructible object to the end of the chain may even reduce rather than improve pig welfare. To test this hypothesis an expert survey was conducted containing 26 more or less compound questions. On a scale from 0 to 10 experts specified their level of agreement with the hypothesis, the prevalence and welfare scores of nine indestructible enrichment materials. In total 36 experts, mostly pig-welfare scientists, responded (response rate: 39%). Indestructible objects are less prevalent in countries that provide straw (like Sweden and the UK) and outside the EU (US). They are more prevalent in the Netherlands, Belgium, France and Finland, while the prevalence seems to be low in Spain. Balls, wood and pipes were provided most frequently: hard wood especially in the UK (as specified in farm assurance); indestructible balls and pipes in Germany and the Netherlands. The experts’ score for agreement with the hypothesis was only 4.6 on average (scale 0-10; n=25). Enrichment materials, ranked from high to low welfare score, were grouped in 5 significance levels as indicated by different superscripts based on Wilcoxon signed rank tests: Branched chains (5.1a), Chain on the floor (4.4b), Hard wood (3.7bc), Pipe (3.5c), Bare chain (3.3c), Short chain (3.1d), Small ball (2.8d), Big ball (2.5d), and Chain hanging too high (1.3e). Branched chains scored significantly better than all other indestructible materials and its welfare score (5.1 on average) was close to the pre-defined level of acceptability (5.5 on a scale from 0, worst, to 10, best). The welfare benefits of adding balls, pipes or hard wood to the metal chain were marginal, and well below what the experts considered acceptable enrichment. The branched-chains design, by contrast, appears to be the most viable alternative. It involves providing a longer chain, i.e. with the free end reaching to floor level, adding ‘branches’, i.e. several short chains ending at the nose height of the pigs, and providing more chains per pen (i.e. 1 branched chain per 5 pigs). Branched chains should be implemented widely and in the short term as a first step towards, and benchmark for, providing proper enrichment to intensively-farmed pigs.


Branched chain
Two organic pigs interacting simultaneously with a branched chain in the snow. Despite access to a straw bed for rooting, even organic pigs may interact with such chains for long periods of time, esp. directed towards the floor. In fact they will root the chain on the floor more than twice as much as playing with it in a horizontal position. In intensive pig production chains are often (too) short, and when a hockey-type ball or ‘sustainable’ plastic pipe is attached to the end of such a chain the pigs’ interest, and their welfare, is often even reduced further.
Two pigs playing simultaneously with a preferred anchor-type branched chain design.

This post was published originally on the personal website of the first author (see here).

Enrichment may be joyful and reduce stress in young pigs

Pre-weaning environmental enrichment increases piglets’ object play behaviour on a large scale commercial pig farm. By Chung-Hsuan Yang, Heng-Lun Ko, Laura C. Salazar, Lourdes Llonch, Xavier Manteca, Irene Camerlink, Pol Llonch, 2018. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 202: 7-12 Environmental enrichment is a legal requirement for European pig farms. The suitability of enrichment materials for neonatal pigs is understudied and has not been tested in commercial settings. This study investigates the effect of hanging objects and substrate as two enrichment strategies pre-weaning, and compares the effect of these enrichment objects on play behaviour, aggression, growth and stress coping ability during lactation until 10 days after weaning. Farrowing crates were equipped with either six hanging objects (OB), a substrate box with wood bark (SUB), or nothing (control; CON). The behaviour of over 600 piglets (∼210 piglets/treatment) was recorded weekly by instantaneous scan sampling (10 s/piglet, repeated 6 times per day for 6 days). Aggression was monitored through skin lesions on focal piglets on 1 day before weaning and 1 and 2 days after weaning. Piglets were weighed individually every week. Stress coping ability was assessed through salivary cortisol from a sample of six piglets per litter on 1 day before (baseline), and on days 1 and 2 after weaning. Both enrichment groups showed more object play during lactation as compared to the control group (P < 0.001). The amount of object play increased linearly with age (P < 0.001). Enrichment did not affect social play or locomotor play during lactation. Enrichment did not influence the amount of skin lesions before weaning, but heavier piglets had more skin lesions (P < 0.01). The enrichment strategies had no influence on weight gain at any stage. The baseline of the salivary cortisol concentration was similar amongst the treatment groups; however, the cortisol concentration of the object group and control group was significantly higher at one day after weaning than at baseline (P < 0.001) whereas the substrate group showed no significant increase. In conclusion, providing either hanging objects or substrate alone could encourage neonatal piglets to express more object play behaviour. Compared to the hanging objects, providing substrate in the commercial neonatal environment demonstrated to decrease piglets’ stress at weaning, and therefore increase animal welfare.

Risk factors for tail lesions in weaner pigs

Factors influencing the risk for tail lesions in weaner pigs (Sus scrofa). by Angelika Grümpel, Joachim Krieter, Christina Veit, Sabine Dippel, 2018. Livestock science 216: 219-226.

Highlights

We identified five factors influencing the risk for tail lesions in weaner pigs.•

We can recommend regression tree analysis for describing tail lesion risk factors.•

Data interpretation should include information on correlations between variables.

Abstract

Tail biting is a behavioural disorder in pigs which results in tail lesions. Many factors must be considered to reduce the risk for tail biting due to the multifactorial character of this behaviour. We developed a software-based tail biting management tool called “SchwIP” for analysing farm individual risk factors for tail biting in weaner pigs. SchwIP was applied on 25 conventional farms throughout Germany who kept weaner pigs in closed barns (median 1,800 weaning places). The farms were visited up to three times between August 2016 and November 2017 and a total of 368 pens were assessed. Data regarding enrichment, pen environment, feed, water, climate, health, farm management, transport and regrouping were analysed with regression tree analysis (RT) using pen level prevalence of tail lesions (%) as the outcome variable. There were five primary influencing factors for tail lesions: docking status, stocking density, daily weight gain, suckling piglet losses and number of litters mixed during weaning. The correlation between observed and predicted prevalence of tail lesions across all pens was 0.6. Most of the factors may represent combinations of influences on a farm which agree with the multifactorial nature of the problem. Even though weight gain may also be influenced by tail biting behaviour and thus be a parallel outcome, it could be used by farmers as an indicator for initiating closer examination and intervention. The use of RT for visualising complex risk factor analyses is recommendable, though their analytical suitability for clustered data should further be evaluated.


Effect of straw on behaviour, lesions and pen hygiene in undocked pigs

Implication and impact of straw provision on behaviour, lesions and pen hygiene on commercial farms rearing undocked pigs. By Torun Wallgren, Anne Larsen, Nils Lundeheim, Rebecka Westin, Stefan Gunnarsson, 2018. Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci. In press.

Highlights

Pigs that received more straw had more straw directed behaviour.•

Pigs that received more straw showed less pen directed behaviour.•

Increased straw ration decreased the amount of damaged tails in finishing pigs.•

Increased straw provision did not affect pen hygiene.

Abstract

According to the European Union Council Directive 2008/120EC, measures to minimise the risk for tail biting shall be taken before practicing tail docking, e.g. provision of manipulable material. Still,>90% of the pigs within EU are tail docked. Thus, management routines for providing manipulable material in commercial pig production are needed. The aim of this study was to investigate how an increase from normal straw ration influence pig behaviour, occurrence of tail- and ear lesions and impact on pen hygiene.
The experiment was conducted on five Swedish commercial farms; one grower and four farrow-to-finish farms. One batch per farm was studied, following pigs throughout the grower or finishing pig period. Both age groups were examined in two of the farrow-to-finish farms and only finishers in the other two, studying three grower and four finisher batches in total. The pens in a batch were divided into Control (C) and Extra Straw (ES). Pens in C were provided with the farm normal daily straw ratio, while pigs in ES got a doubled C-ration. The pigs in eight focus pens per Treatment were scored for lesions on ears and tails every two weeks. In connection with lesion scoring, behaviour observation was conducted in active pigs during one hour (4 min scan sampling) in the focus pens. All pigs in the batch were examined for tail- and ear lesions during the first and last week of the experiment.
Both growers and finishers spent most of their active time manipulating straw. ES-pigs showed more straw-directed and less pen-directed behaviour in both age groups compared to C-pigs. Behaviour was also affected by farm and age revealing that the impact of an increased straw ration differed between farms and pig age. The increased straw ration did not affect the pen cleanliness, showing that it was practically feasible to increase the straw rations on all participating farms.
The prevalence of tail damages increased with age, and more severe damages was found in C compared to ES. Severe tail and ear lesions were found in ~0.6 and 0.07% of the growers and ~2.2 and 0.75% of the finishers, C- and ES pigs respectively. Approximately 50% of the finishing pigs had tail damages at the end of the study, but the majority of lesions were less than 5 mm long and might not have been detected without close clinical examination.

Webcast Rearing pigs with intact tails -Expert meeting November 27-28, 2018 Grange

Animal Welfare: Event about progress on rearing pigs with intact tails

[Original text taken from the EU site]
Tuesday 27 – Wednesday 28 November

Dunsany, C15DA39, Ireland (live streaming available)

The European Commission is organising a two day meeting from 27 to 28 November 2018, sharing valuable insights from top EU experts on progress with rearing pigs with intact tails and thus improving their welfare.

The meeting, which will take place at the Commission’s Health and Food audit and analysis Directorate in Ireland, will be available via web streaming (see web-links below).

The topics presented are especially of interest for industry stakeholders, authorities in EU Member States, researchers, and NGOs interested in the welfare of pigs, as they focus on ongoing work to improve rearing conditions on farms to assist in the phasing out of routine tail-docking of pigs and managing the risk factors relating to tail biting.

The group of expert speakers include pig farmers and industry representative organisations, EU Member State competent authorities, research bodies, NGOs and EU institutions.  Discussions will focus on what has been done, and what remains to be done, to get better solutions for the future. The work of the newly created EU Reference Centre for Animal Welfare, focussing initially on pigs, will also be presented at this meeting. A more detailed agenda will be uploaded once all speakers have been confirmed.

Please note: The proceedings of this meeting, apart from table discussions, will be broadcast live and can be followed via the following links:

Day 1 – 27 November 2018 – 09:00-18:00

Day 2 – 28 November 2018 – 09:00-15:00

The presentations can be viewed here.

An animal‐based screening method for sufficient amount of straw to fulfil the need for exploration and manipulation

An animal‐based screening method for sufficient amount of straw to fulfil the need for exploration and manipulation

By Margit Bak Jensen and Lene Juul Pedersen, October 19, 2018

This document describes a screening method to assess if pigs are supplied with a sufficient amount of straw to fulfil their need for exploration and manipulation through collection of data on the availability of straw, pigs’ exploratory behaviour and lesion scoring.

Read more: An animal‐based screening method for sufficient amount of straw to fulfil the need for exploration and manipulation

Curly pig tail farming in Finland and Italy (two EC videos)

EU legislation on the welfare of pigs (Council Directive 2008/120/EC laying down minimum standards for the protection of pigs) does not allow routine tail-docking and requires farmers to provide to their pigs “manipulable material” such as straw, hay or sawdust.
To better inform farmers how to prevent routine tail docking, the Commission developed educational materials. The two videos present success stories in achieving the goal of rearing not-tailed pigs.

A Finnish farming with an intensive system rearing piglets with intact, curly tails.

An Italian farmer proud of rearing curly tails on straw

Can enrichment help reduce tail docking?

In several episodes, leading welfare researchers explain the results they obtained within the international framework ‘FareWellDock’. This project investigates how to steer away from tail docking. Swedish and Danish researchers took a look at straw – does its use reduce the occurrence of tail biting?

Read more in Pig Progress.

From the article:
Tail docking is completely banned in Sweden, Finland and Switzerland.

Science suggests that lack of proper manipulable material is one of several major risk factors for tail biting.

A moderate amount of straw (150 g/pig/day) reduced the risk of injurious tail biting by more than two-fold, while docking seemed to be more effective as it reduced the risk by more than four-fold.

A combination of straw and increased space (1.2 m2 per pig) reduced the risk (of first occurrence) in undocked pigs to the same level as found in docked pigs kept under high stocking density (0.72 m2 per pig) without straw.

To provide a suitable outlet for exploratory behaviour under production conditions, materials have to be varied and complex, and are most effective when easily destroyed by chewing, or if they are edible.

Increasing the amount of straw from 10 to up to 400g/pig/day had multiple positive effects by progressively reducing the occurrence of tail injuries and stomach ulcers, increasing growth rate, increasing straw-directed behaviour, and reducing redirected behaviours towards other pigs.

Left-over straw may be a promising candidate method to screen for appropriate level of straw allocation.

Tail biting app (advisory tool)

The Tail Biting “WebHAT” (Web based Husbandry Advisory Tool) is a website designed to be an interactive resource providing information about the key risks for tail biting in pigs and practical suggestions to help reduce these risks on-farm.

Taking information from evidence-based sources and scientific literature, this WebHAT identifies a number of risks associated with tail biting (a key pig behaviour), and can be used to generate a report of prioritised, key tail-biting risks found on a farm and obtain suggestions to address the specific risks identified

You can access the WebHAT tool here.

Tail biting pigs

Weighing tail biting against tail docking

Weighing tail biting against tail docking

Tail docking is an undesirable mutilation of pigs. Currently virtually all young piglets are docked in conventional farming so as to prevent tail biting later in life. However, throughout Europe efforts are made to reduce tail docking. Often farmers provide additional enrichment to try and prevent tail biting. Nevertheless, stopping the practice of tail docking may, and frequently does, lead to elevated levels of tail biting, resulting in tail wounds. In relation to this farmers and policy makers would like to know what levels of tail biting would be equivalent to tail docking in terms of pig welfare, i.e. how much tail biting can be allowed before deciding it would be better to continue tail docking. But this poses the problem how to weigh the (lack of) welfare involved in tail biting of a grower or finishing pig against the pain of tail docking of young piglets. Is this possible? And if so, how?

Brainstorm

We recently had a brainstorm session on this subject. This is an outline of what we came up with, including a very tentative personal estimate (by MB).

In my personal view when (in the end up to) about 12% of undocked pigs were tail bitten that would be roughly equivalent in welfare to the docking of all piglets. The uncertainty margin, however,  is high, at least ranging from 5-25%. The reasoning underlying my estimate is as follows.

Pain

Firstly, piglets are normally docked using hot iron cautery. This is quite painful as it involves applying both heat and rather blunt trauma. The heat kills bacteria and thus may reduce the chance of subsequent infection of the tail wound. Tail biting at a later age, by contrast, is caused by even more (and multiple) blunt trauma (due to biting). It also has a substantially higher likelihood of infection. In addition, there is e.g. fear in the tail bitten pig due to being chased by a biter. Based on this I would say that pain (and stress directly related to tail biting) may roughly be about ten times as high in intensity and about ten times as long in duration, compared to tail docking. This would imply that 1 tail-bitten pig is off-set by about 100 docked piglets as regards the intensity and duration of the pain involved.

Stress

However, animal welfare encompasses more than just pain. An important additional factor is the level of stress which is not directly related to tail biting activity.

Firstly, there may be stress related to the treatment of tail biting, e.g. when biters and/or victims are taken out of the pen (resulting in social isolation and/or fighting). This stressor, however, is partly offset by the enhanced enrichment normally provided to pigs experiencing an outbreak of tail biting (though not all pigs are equally affected by the ‘costs’ and ‘benefits’). Note that there is another, more macabre, offset involving ‘happiness’ too, and that is the excitement experienced by the (sometimes fanatic) biter pigs when a tail-biting outbreak has started. Note also, that this biter ‘welfare’ is at the same time an indicator of the level of (background) stress experienced by pigs leading to this abnormal behaviour in the first place.

A much more important source of stress that must be taken into account, therefore, is related to the general housing conditions to which the pigs are exposed prior to a tail biting outbreak. Tail biting is an unnatural behaviour that is triggered by (some kind of) stress. Pig farmers are aware of this and will try and prevent tail biting by generally improving the housing conditions when they (start to) raise pigs with intact (undocked) tails. Thus the expected level of stress to which the pigs are exposed is likely to be higher in the case of routine tail docking. When farmers stop tail docking they normally provide much better enrichment (rooting material & space). Farmers raising pigs with intact tails will also take other measures to reduce stress, e.g. provide better climatic conditions, better feed and better health care. These stress-reducing measures don’t just apply to the biters or the victims of tail biting. They apply to all pigs in the pen. Furthermore, they don’t just apply during an outbreak of tail biting, but they apply throughout the pigs’ lives. Hence, the reduced stress levels are a major factor reducing the off-set between docking and tail biting based exclusively on pain (and pain-related fear). I would estimate that the improved living conditions may reduce the off-set by at least a factor 10. This would mean that taking into account both pain and stress, 100(%) docked pigs (kept with minimal care and in a more barren environment) could be roughly equivalent to similarly-sized group of pigs with intact tails under enriched conditions and in which 10% of the pigs has been tail bitten.

Tail biting in docked pigs

However, we know that tail biting does not only occur in undocked pigs. It is also seen in docked pigs. Roughly 2% of docked pigs are tail bitten. It seems safe to assume that the level of pain from being tail bitten is roughly comparable in docked pigs and in undocked pigs (though docked tails may be more sensitive and thus less likely to get bitten). Taking this into account would imply that 100 docked pigs of which 2% also experiences tail biting later in life would be having a level of (poor) welfare comparable to 100 undocked pigs of which 12% gets tail bitten. This is about 6 times as much tail biting as the 2% base-line set under conventional docking conditions.

Much uncertainty

It must be emphasised again, however, that this level of 12% tail biting is a very rough estimate. So, a wide safety-margin applies, e.g. 5-25%. This may depend in particular on the quality of enrichment and the extra care provided under non-docking conditions.

Please note, that this post is the result of a brainstorm session only and presents a personal view. It illustrates how systematic reasoning (using principles of semantic modelling) can be used to start to answer this rather important welfare question. I have provided a very rough estimate. For a more accurate assessment more detailed studies would certainly be required, both in terms of more carefully including what is already known and in terms of accumulating more empirical knowledge about what is not known yet. At present the assessment is still very speculative, and meant to illustrate primarily how to in principle deal with the question of what level of tail biting is equivalent to a practice of routine tail docking.

‘Weighing’ a pig ‘manually’

Postscript: Excluded aspects and some feedback from readers

Note that, in my estimate I neglected several (minor) aspects.

Firstly, I neglected the fact that for tail docking piglets must be picked up. This results in stress, both in the mother sow and in the piglets. From an evolutionary perspective the procedure of catching piglets may be equivalent to experiencing capture by a predator. This would mean that the given estimate would be a moderate underestimation. However, tail docking may be performed in combination with other treatments such as iron injection and castration. If so, the additional stress from handling may be relatively minor. Note, however, that castration applies only to males and may be banned in the near future, and iron injection may be given orally as a kind of ingestible compost, or as has recently been shown, may not be necessary at all. Hence, combining such treatments with tail docking has a reducing likelihood.

Secondly, I assumed that teeth cutting will not be practiced to treat an outbreak of tail biting, neither in the docked pigs, nor in the undocked pigs. Or, more precisely, at least I assumed teeth cutting is not practiced in substantially different numbers of pig. Such teeth cutting is painful and illegal, so it could be considered appropriate to ignore the practice. However, if it were practiced more in undocked pigs (which are likely to experience higher levels of tail biting), then it would have a substantial impact on the level of equivalence, pushing the percentage back down again substantially.

A third point to note is that I did not include in the estimate other ethical considerations or our (anthropomorphic) emotional responses. An example of the latter may be related to the amount of blood seen in the pen, the farmer’s level of stress (unpredictability) associated to this, and the potentially adverse economic consequences associated with tail biting. An example of other ethical considerations is the fact that tail docking may be considered to be an infringement of the animals’ integrity or intrinsic value. In such a rights-based moral view tail docking may be considered ethically wrong, regardless of the level of tail biting when tail docking is stopped. Such aspects were excluded because these are aspects not directly related to animal welfare. They are more related to our human perception of ethics and/or human welfare, rather than animal welfare.

Finally, it is most important to emphasise that I have considered steady-state conditions, but realize that all practices are subject to optimisation. The practice of tail docking has already been optimised for over a period of at least 50 year. By contrast, the practice of raising pigs with intact tails still more or less has to enter the phase of optimisation in commercial practice. This implies that substantially higher levels of tail biting may be regarded as acceptable, provided this is only temporary and provided it leads to substantially lower levels of tail biting later on. In other words, it requires that farmers will persist in raising pigs with intact tails and have a chance to learn to deal with it over a certain transition period, both in terms of prevention and treatment of tail-biting outbreaks.

Feedback reader 1:

Regarding the painfulness of tail biting vs tail docking, I find it impossible to guess the relation – especially as tail biting comes in so many forms.

I absolutely agree that a weighing like this is necessary, but I also think it is a bit dangerous to throw out estimates that are not really based on any evidence (or at least you do not present any?), such as the 100 times worse pain experienced by bitten pigs than docked pigs. Also, tail biting is very heterogeneous, from just a small, one-time bite, to a chronic situation, where the entire tail is lost, so the way you estimate the pain simplifies the matter greatly.

As to the expected level of actual tail biting when docking is stopped: I estimate a two-fold increase in tail biting if no docking is performed. Perhaps somewhere between 2- and 4-fold, based on e.g. slaughterhouse data. There may be a 4-fold increase when the housing situation is not improved otherwise – which you also take into account in your text – when applying a non-docking policy the farmer would normally also improve housing conditions, thus reducing the risk further. I certainly agree that when a farm stops docking, they will probably have a higher incidence of tail biting initially, but on the long-term (as is shown e.g. in Finland where tail docking is totally forbidden, and the tail-biting incidence, based on abattoir data is around 2%), a 10 or 12% incidence is certainly higher than I would expect.

Feedback reader 2:

Having read your blog I think you need to factor in adaptive, compensatory pain modulation into your model.

It is sometimes too easy to fail to take into account post-injury peripheral and central modulation of pain signalling that occur as part of the normal healing process and only focus on the ‘pro-pain’ component.

I also don’t see how you can substantiate this claim?

‘Based on this I would say that the pain of tail biting may be about ten times as high and about ten times as long, compared to tail docking. This would imply that 1 tail-bitten pig is off-set by about 100 docked piglets as regards the intensity and duration of the pain involved’.

While I think it might be possible to attribute weighting to some risk factors within systems, I don’t think it can be applied to pain experienced by an individual (or even at group level as you are suggesting) because there are so many factors that contribute to an individual’s experience of pain? I don’t think you can quantify the painfulness of tail biting and tail docking.

Also when thinking about stress you might want to define what you mean by that in relation to chronicity?

Short-term compensatory responses to stress are in my view positive for the animal; however beyond that when there is a failure of compensation and ultimately homeostatic decompensation then they are undoubtedly negative.

I guess I’m suggesting that any weighting approach might need to accommodate (or factor in) changes over time (i.e. dynamic weighting?)

I hope you find my comments helpful?

Reply:

As to substantiation, again, it’s my suggestion for a start of an argument to answer this in my view fairly important question. My answer is based on my personal experience as a vet and scientist, and on reasons indicated in the blog. It is certainly in need of further study, examination and assessment. I fully acknowledge the considerable level of uncertainty as well as the risk associated with trying to answer the question. At the same time, however, I would also argue that there is a considerable risk in refusing to try to answer the question, as this leaves the issue to stakeholders.

Feedback reader 3:

Joining the discussion rather late, but basically I agree with the points others have made. I think it quite reasonable to conceptually set out the trade-offs which would determine the level of tail biting above which tail docking could be ethically justified, but putting numbers on some of these things is rather difficult.

For risk of tail biting in docked and undocked pigs we have a growing number of published sources and comparative national data.

For experimental comparisons we have old data suggesting increases of 30-60% in pigs in unbedded systems.

More recently we have studies suggesting somewhat lower results if straw is given.

So this part is perhaps simple, but depends on your assumptions about which husbandry systems will pertain across Europe.

For the welfare detriment of tail docking and tail biting, data indicate that both have long lasting effects on pain processing pathways, but the implications of this for pain perception for the individual are uncertain.

For tail docking, the data I have seen are still contradictory on whether cautery is more or less painful than simple section (some suggest the cautery destroys the nerves whilst others suggest greater pain). There is also the possibility of tail docking with anaesthesia/analgesia as a route of adoption.

For tail biting, the short term pain will certainly depend on the severity and, even more, on the prevalence of infection. The data on this are currently lacking to my knowledge.

The welfare impairment of keeping in conditions which give rise to tail biting is clearly the greatest of all in magnitude (severity x duration x no of animals) but I don’t think we have any way of comparing the welfare severity of ‘behavioural frustration’ against that of injury/pain. I would be concerned about taking arbitrary figures in the absence of any logical basis.

So, I guess my suggestion would be to explore the framework for this decision, but be very wary about pretending we can quantify it.

I also think the issue not addressed in your blog is the time course of any transition to cessation of tail docking and how to manage this. What proportion of farmers would have the awareness, capital and staff training to implement the changes necessary to their existing housing if obliged to cease tail docking (some older, fully slatted and large group housing systems will pose much bigger challenges and possibly require replacement of buildings), and how long would it take across Europe to reach the ‘acceptable’ situation of relatively low differential in tail-biting prevalence between docked and intact tails, rather than the ‘unacceptable’ differential shown for “one off” change in tail-docking experiments (stopping docking without further improvement of the environmental conditions). I think it important to highlight that your analysis relates to a ‘steady state’ situation and the importance of how any transition is managed and the welfare implications which this will have.

Reply:

Note that I have not been comparing docking versus non-docking in a mono-factorial way. I compared docking in a more barren environment versus not docking in a more enriched environment supplemented with special attention by the farmer, as that is what will normally happen in practice. I have now emphasised this more clearly in the text.

I largely agree that we currently largely lack the data needed to quantify more precisely. However, I also believe that in principle it is possible to do so, and that the estimate/assessment can be more or less verified empirically (as the body of knowledge accumulates and modelling principles are improved). Personally, I am inclined to try and quantify despite considerable uncertainty, because it provides a better starting point for further discussion. In addition, such preliminary but more science-based estimates are much needed to complement the inevitably politically-loaded figures and personal assessments presented by farmer-representatives and NGO’s arguing either (rather exclusively) against or in favour of ending tail docking as a routine practice to prevent tail biting.

An important point I’ve been trying to make is that pain is not the only relevant aspect of welfare involved in tail docking and tail biting, and that the levels of enrichment and care should also be taken into account. I don’t think it is even possible to honestly say it is not possible to ‘add’ these aspects, since proper political decision making (in all kinds of areas, not just tail biting) simply does and has to, whether it is considered scientifically possible or not. And if so, I would argue it is most reasonable to try and provide the best possible scientific support, while being as honest as possible e.g. about uncertainty margins and the relevance of incorporating more information. I also think the estimate provides broad support to ‘farewell-dock’ initiatives such as those in Finland, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, the UK and Germany.