Guidance

Pigs: on-farm welfare

How to keep and breed pigs, and your responsibilities for housing, feeding and looking after them.

• From: Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs
• Published: 26 February 2020
• Last updated: 5 October 2023 — See all updates

Documents

Code of practice for the welfare of pigs

HTML

Code of practice for the welfare of pigs

PDF, 623 KB, 59 pages

Details

The legislation covering on-farm welfare for pigs is:

• the Animal Welfare Act 2006
• the Welfare of Farmed Animals (England) Regulations 2007
• the Mutilations (Permitted Procedures) (England) Regulations 2007

The code of practice for the welfare of pigs provides guidance on how to comply with this legislation. It’s intended to help all those who care for pigs to practise good standards of stockmanship to safeguard pig welfare.

You and any staff working with pigs must read, understand and have access to this code. Welfare codes are not law, but if you do not follow them they can be used as evidence in court to show breaches of legislation.

Some of the references to legislation in the codes are out of date. You should refer to the animal welfare legislation listed above and relevant wider legislation as needed.

For more information on legislation and codes of practice for other species, see farm animals: looking after their welfare.

Published 26 February 2020
Last updated 5 October 2023 + show all updates

1. 5 October 2023

   Created new HTML version of the code of recommendations for pigs to match the PDF version laid in parliament.

2. 1 March 2020

   Added the code of practice for the welfare of pigs

3. 26 February 2020

   First published.