Tail posture and motion in relation to natural behaviour in juvenile and adult pigs

• Key finding:

  A low tail posture, i.e. a hanging or tucked tail, is in pigs increasingly seen as an indicator of reduced welfare due to its correlation with the receipt of injurious tail biting. Our study under free-range conditions shows that distinction between the tail postures in a more detailed manner is needed to understand how tail postures relate to animal welfare. The data shows that active hanging tails occur frequent and mostly in relation to generally positive behaviours such as foraging, whereas passive hanging and tucked tails were indeed observed infrequently under free-range conditions.

Links to Open Access Publications or DOI:

• https://doi.org/10.1016/j.animal.2022.100489

Citation:

Iglesias, P. M., & Camerlink, I. (2022). Tail posture and motion in relation to natural behaviour in juvenile and adult pigs. Animal, 16(4), 100489.