On a farm deep in Italy’s Lombardy region, scores of contented-looking pigs gambol, play and root about in spacious pens deep in straw. It looks more rural idyll than 1,000-strong breeding farm, but the pigs at this Fumagalli farm are in a lucky minority.

Unlike many of the pigs destined for the country’s prestigious prosciutto market – worth 7.98bn euros (£7bn) last year – they have not been subjected to the painful practice of tail-docking. A recent EU audit found that across farms in Lombardy and Emilia-Romagna, the country’s two main pig breeding regions, 98% of farmers remove their animals’ tails, a rate that stands among the highest in Europe.

Tail-docking – carried out without anaesthetic when the piglet is three to four days old – is intended to prevent the severe injuries that can occur when pigs bite each others’ tails. Studies have shown it causes acute trauma and pain, and can trigger infections and leave lasting discomfort.

A 2014 EU report notes that the crowded, stressful conditions common on industrial-scale farms, in which pigs are unable to pursue their natural investigative behaviour, are the main trigger for tail-biting outbreaks. Routine tail-docking is illegal under an EU directive, and although this legislation is not enforced across Europe, the practice is banned under Italian law. So why are these regulations so broadly disregarded?

“In theory, in order for a vet to be able to dock a pig’s tail, they had to declare that there were lesions on the sow’s teats, or on the ears or tails of other pigs,” explains Enrico Moriconi, a former vet and now Piedmont’s animal rights ombudsman. “But tails are cut when the piglets are five days old. It’s impossible to know at that point if the group will behave in this way. It’s just assumed that this kind of breeding leads to tail-biting, so they cut them off.”

Italy is not unique in Europe for its high rates of tail-docking, say welfare campaigners Eurogroup for Animals. “However, it is an emblematic case, because Italian products such as Parma ham are associated with excellence,” points out the group’s veterinary adviser for farm animals, Elena Nalon. “Producers are routinely flaunting minimum legal requirements on animal welfare.”

The Italian government acknowledges the scale of the problem. This year it set up a working group, which has drawn up a three-year action plan to be implemented across each of Italy’s 3,000 breeding farms to improve conditions, thus avoiding the need to dock pigs’ tails.

“It’s a positive action,” says Annamaria Pisapia of Compassion in World Farming Italy. “But of course the breeders sometimes have difficulty in understanding it. Some of them are saying that they will be obliged to close 30% of farms … [But] this is the future. We have to breed animals with better care and pay the farmer higher prices.”

Italy’s climate means the country is a special case, as the heat makes life particularly difficult for pigs, says Stefano Salvarani, who is pig farmers’ representative for Confagricoltura, one of the main farmers’ associations. Summer temperatures regularly exceed 35C, problematic for pigs, which have a limited capacity for regulating their own body temperature. “The animals get nervous,” he says. “It’s normal that they bite their brothers’ tails. It’s not comparable with the north of Europe. Also, our pigs grow bigger, so they can step on each other’s tails and get wounds, lesions to the spine.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Tail-docking using a hot iron. Photograph: Courtesy of FareWellDock

Salvarani, whose company produces 6,000 pigs a year, is experimenting with leaving 20% of his stock undocked. “The problems start during the summer. You can give them little showers to make them feel better but it’s impossible to fight such a hot climate.” For him, the outcome of the trial is already clear. “Pigs are very intelligent. When they’re nervous, they can’t do anything but bite their neighbours. You can reduce stock intensity but it doesn’t change the result.”

Back at the high-welfare Fumagalli farm, in Senna Lodigiana, Pietro Pizzagalli begs to differ. Fumagalli is a family-run business set up in the 1920s – it now produces from 30,000-35,000 pigs a year on farms across northern Italy, with a turnover of 55m euros. They stopped docking pigs’ tails four years ago in 80% of their farms, and last year they received the Good Pig Award from Compassion in World Farming Italy. All their sheds are enriched with straw, and sows are not confined to stalls after insemination. “We decided we wanted to do things differently,” says Pizzagalli, one of the Fumagalli family and manager of the company’s farms.

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Here, chains hang from the ceiling for the pigs to play with if they need something to bite on. There’s a solid floor, rather than a slatted one – the slats make it easier to deal with sewage, but are more likely to injure the animals’ feet – and pigs have space to move around. “We put fewer pigs per square metre than the law requires,” says Pizzagalli. “We get a smaller quantity of meat produced, but we believe that it’s worth it.”

At another Fumagalli farm, in Cremona province, 950 pigs are kept in internal and external pens, with straw-covered floors. The owner, Gianluca Tomaselli, only recently started rearing pigs for the company, but is convinced of the efficacy of the system. “There is not much risk [in the pigs having long tails]” he says. “You just need to pay attention every day and if you see a wounded pig you bring him into the infirmary, which is a separate pen.”

In November 2017, EU auditors visited Stefano Mazzali’s farm, in Mantova province. A conventional farmer, Mazzali has pigs with docked tails, but also 4,800 animals with tails intact. “We enrich the pens with baskets full of straw. We made a few attempts to find the right ones for the pigs but apart from that it wasn’t that difficult. I actually prefer pigs to have their tails because if they already have a short tail and it gets bitten, it’s more dangerous for the animal.”

The obsession with tail-docking comes down to a psychological block for Italian farmers, according to Mazzali. “Yes, you have to organise better management for the sewage, and if you have an old building it can be expensive, and you need to pay extra attention to the animals. But it’s not difficult at all.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A Gloucester Old Spot piglet in Oxfordshire. Photograph: FLPA/REX/Shutterstock

“It is more expensive,” says Pizzagalli. “With the straw, for example, the pig moves more and grows slower. Instead of 2kg of feed for 1kg of meat growth, you need 3kg. But there is a law. It’s like if I ignore the speed limit at 130km/h because I wanted to drive faster and get to my destination quicker. Normally, I would be sanctioned, and if I kept breaking the law they would take my driving licence away.”

Yet without the law against tail-docking being strictly enforced, can Italy succeed in driving out the practice? “Changing this situation will require an overhaul of the system, a shift in farmers’ mentality towards putting animals’ needs at the centre of the pig production model,” says Eurogroup for Animals’ Elena Nalon. “Some farmers are already doing this, showing that it is not impossible. We need to make it mainstream.”

The time is right for change, says vet Giovanni Alborali, who heads up the Italian government’s working group. “Breeders understand the importance of the animal welfare trend,” he says, “because if the pig is fine, the final product will be better. It’s good for profits and for ethics. With sows, we stopped keeping them in sow stalls for their whole pregnancy and put them into the group pen. Now it’s time to stop cutting pigs’ tails.”