NPA senior policy Georgina Crayford has highlighted pig industry concerns over Defra’s approach to tail docking in a BBC interview.
Dr Crayford was interviewed on the topic on the BBC Farming Today programme.
You can listen to the feature here (6 minutes, 50 seconds).
Put to her that Defra should be doing all it can to ensure farmers comply with welfare regulations, Dr Crayford said: “We agree we should be sticking to the rules. The problem is that there has been an increase in the enforcement of the legislation and, at the moment, farmers are in the dark about what they need to be doing on farm in order to be deemed compliant.
“The legislation states that before farmers dock tails they must take other measures to prevent tail biting, including looking at the environment and stocking density. The challenge for farmers is that scientific evidence has shown that there is huge number of risk factors for tail biting.
“One paper showed there were 83 risk factors for this behaviour. So farmers might feel they have been doing everything in their power, yet they might not have been able to identify that one risk factor causing tail biting on their farm.”
Pig World has teamed up with Pig World, AHDB and the Pig Veterinary Society to communicate the issues around tail biting and tail docking. You can read more here