Providing Environmental Enrichment Offers a Good Start to Reduce Risk of Tail Biting

Sep 07, 2026

A research scientist with the Prairie Swine Centre suggests providing pigs with rooting materials they can chew will reduce the risk of tail biting. Tail biting is an abnormal behavior where one pig chews or bites the tail of a pen mate, raising the risk for reduced weight gain, increased carcass condemnations, higher risk of disease and even mortality.Dr. Jen-Yun Chou, a research scientist with the Prairie Swine Centre, says we consider tail biting to be a type of redirected foraging behavior so while there are many risk factors a key one is the absence or availability of rooting material.

Quote-Dr. Jen-Yun Chou-Prairie Swine Centre:

Every single farm is different. You can provide different enrichments, as we call them. That will reduce some of your risk factors for tail biting.But at the same time, watch your feeding, feeder space, watch your ventilation, watch your air quality and also watch out for your stocking density. There are a lot of things that people can do in the barn so, whenever you do have an issue of tail biting, you really have to ask yourself are you putting yourself at a higher risk or how do you lower that risk?

In a Canadian kind of situation, we would like to see some, for example, ropes. You have to understand what pigs like and what do they, when they forage, what are the traits they're looking for? They are looking for something they can chew; they are looking for something that they can destroy, destructible and ideally it's edible, so they can ingest, because that goes back to they are omnivores. They like to pick up things to chew.

So then having ropes, if you can afford to have a tiny bit of sawdust or a tiny bit of chopped straw or anything that they can root, or if you have a jute sack, they can really destroy, they can pull apart and then they can eat it, then I think that's a good start.

Dr. Chou says when the pigs engage in tail biting there is something wrong in the herd, whether it's health or the environment or airflow so you really have to pay attention to these details.

Source : Farmscape.ca

Video: ASF Control Lessons - Dr. Mary-Louise Penrith

In this episode of The Swine it Podcast Show Canada, Dr. Mary-Louise Penrith, Extraordinary Professor at the University of Pretoria, shares what decades of work have revealed about ASF control. She explains why vaccine development remains difficult, how human activity and food waste drive disease spread, why resistant pig populations are an important research area, and how strict biosecurity with the right disinfectants can help to stop transmission. Listen now on all major platforms!

"It's really a very human-driven disease because people move pigs, decide how they're raised, how they're sold, and good biosecurity can do anything to ensure control."

Meet the guest: Dr. Mary-Louise Penrith / mary-louise-penrith-2b12bb42 is an Extraordinary Professor in the Department of Veterinary Tropical Diseases at the University of Pretoria, South Africa. A veterinarian and internationally recognized researcher, she has dedicated decades to African swine fever epidemiology, control, and pig health, supporting FAO and WOAH initiatives while advancing research and education. Listen to Dr. Mary-Louise Penrith on the Swine Health Blackbelt Podcast, available on all major platforms.