AHDB Tail Biting WebHAT

What To Look For:

Look for pens which are long and narrow rectangles, or where the lying area is long and narrow, as this pen layout can restrict the passage of pigs through the pen. Pigs wanting to get between lying area, water, feed and dunging areas in such pens are more likely to disturb other pigs. This is more of a problem where the passage of pigs across the pen or lying area is impeded, especially where the position of the drinkers, feeders and dunging area encourage pigs to walk through the lying area¹¹. When pigs are standing at a feeder or drinkers, check if there enough room for other pigs to pass easily behind them.

Additional information:

Look for pens which are long and narrow rectangles, or where the lying area is long and narrow, as this pen layout can restrict the passage of pigs through the pen. Pigs wanting to get between lying area, water, feed and dunging areas in such pens are more likely to disturb other pigs. This is more of a problem where the passage of pigs across the pen or lying area is impeded, especially where the position of the drinkers, feeders and dunging area encourage pigs to walk through the lying area¹¹. When pigs are standing at a feeder or drinkers, check if there enough room for other pigs to pass easily behind them.

Suggestions:

Pigs being constantly disturbed when resting or eating will result in unsettled pigs, which can increase the risk of tail biting occurring. Actions that can be taken are:

• Consider knocking walls through to combine pens into a more square shape, or into wider rectangles in order to reduce pigs impeding other pigs around the pen.
• Consider removing portions of pen walls to allow movement of pigs between two adjacent pens.
• Remove objects which may be restricting movement patterns around the pen (e.g. unused feed troughs).
• Consider using these pens for smaller pigs or for smaller groups of pigs.
• Consider re-siting feeders or drinkers so that feeding or drinking pigs are not obstructing moving animals.

Additional material:

Using pig behaviour to optimise pen design

http://www.thepigsite.com/articles/928/using-pig-behaviour-to-optimize-pen-design/