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Paper short abstract

Drawing on fieldwork with EU government inspectors who grapple with sustaining a level of pig welfare they themselves deem to be insufficient, I explore the stasis of audit, the failed promise of change, and the moral affects that might offer some hope when indicators of welfare lose their power.

Paper long abstract

Tail docking has been banned in the EU since 1994, yet the majority of intensively reared pigs have docked tails. My ongoing research with inspectors in Denmark, Italy and France examines how they address the intractable issue of routine tail docking. This procedure is conducted in the early days of a piglet’s life and involves the removal of part of the tail, typically with a cauterizing iron. This procedure is illegal in the EU; however, tail docking is authorized if there is a risk that a tail biting outbreak can occur.

In the absence of change, many inspectors, farmers, and veterinarians are now asking, is the tail the right indicator to improve welfare on farms? Whilst the tail has been identified as an iceberg indicator for welfare, the everyday reality on farms reimagines this as an iceberg deleterious to progress, communication, and change due to its proclaimed multifactorial nature. Many factors influence a tail biting episode, so are long tails simply a fairytale of welfare?

Mutilations thus enable compliance with meeting welfare standards within a wider welfare audit regime. Within capitalist agriculture, alternatives exist, whereby alternative is understood as altering the animal in order to comply with audit logics and the profit imperative. By paying attention to the emotions that bubble up when inspectors grapple with the reality of industrial confinement of animals, where animals must be mutilated to fulfil audit logics of acceptable welfare, I interrogate the kinds of alternatives and moral affects that constitute welfare.