In this section of the WebHAT you will find information on early warning signs on your farm that can highlight that something such as ventilation, temperature, feed supply, nutrition etc is not quite right across the farm site. The majority of pigs may be able to tolerate the situation, but it is an early sign that individuals in some pens may turn to tail biting, indicating that the conditions are stressful for some pigs. A deterioration in the situation, eg temperature gets hotter (or colder) or another factor occurs (such as feed outage) may tip the rest of the pigs into tail biting.
Early prevention – things to look for
Awareness of these early cues that tail biting is about to happen can help with early actions to reduce tail biting. Reacting at this stage can help to prevent or reduce the impact of more severe biting activity later; once tail biting is established it is harder to manage or contain.
Scroll down to view a number of early signs associated with later tail biting behaviour, and things to look out for. Select the early signs which apply to your farm to add them to the report.