Court orders government to enforce rules on docking pigs’ tails

A court has ordered the Dutch government to enforce the rules banning pig farmers from docking their animals’ tails in a case brought by animal rights campaigners.

Junior agriculture minister Silvio Erkens has been told to assess three pig farms that have been accused of breaking the rules, which only allow tail docking in exceptional circumstances.

Erkens had rejected a demand from pig welfare group Varkens in Nood to rule whether the three farms were breaking the law, arguing that the rules were too vague to enforce.

But the Dutch Trade and Industry Appeals Tribunal (CBb) said the law required farmers who docked pigs’ tails to show that they met the conditions for being exempted from the ban, enabling the junior minister to make a ruling.

Varkens in Nood said the ban on docking had existed for 30 years but 99% of pigs still have their tails docked. Farmers claim that the practice is necessary to prevent pigs from biting each other’s tails, but campaigners say better living conditions for pigs on farms would solve the problem.

Docking tails is only permitted if the pigs are less than four days old and in situations where wounds have been caused by biting and the farmers have tried other remedies without success.

Food standards

Erkens must now direct the food standards agency NVWA to decide within six months if the three farmers in the case have complied with the law and whether enforcement measures are needed.

The petitioners hope it will lead to the end of the so-called “tolerance” of tail docking, which has been banned across the EU since 1991 but is still widely practised in the Netherlands.

Varkens in Nood says the tails are usually amputated without anaesthetic, a painful procedure that inhibits the pigs’ ability to communicate and allows farmers to keep them in cramped, basic stalls.

Hanneke Wellenberg, of Amsterdam law firm Soeverein Advocaten, said the decision was “a crucial ruling for the millions of pigs in this country”.

“Now that pig farmers will have to end the routine docking of pigs’ tails, they will have to make big improvements to their animals’ living conditions to prevent tail biting.”

Varkens in Nood also asked the court to impose a conditional fine on the farmers until they complied with the rules. But the court said it did not have enough information to make a judgment on whether the law had been broken.