Tail biting in pigs is a serious welfare problem caused by barren, crowded housing — and routine tail docking treats the symptom while leaving the underlying welfare failure unaddressed.
Tail biting represents a system-level welfare failure — pigs in barren, overstocked environments redirect frustrated rooting motivation onto each other. The industry response of docking tails is a modification of the animal to accommodate poor conditions, rather than addressing the conditions themselves. Both the docking procedure and the biting that occurs despite it cause pain. Providing enrichment and appropriate stocking densities eliminates the root cause — but requires production system changes that many operations resist as costly.