Farm Animal Mutilations

EDM number 9 in 1994-95, proposed by Elliot Morley on 16/11/1994.

That this House congratulates Compassion in World Farming Trust on its report condemning the tail-docking of pigs and the de-beaking of hens; believes that the prevention of tail-biting and feather pecking should be approached by keeping pigs and hens in humane conditions in which they can behave naturally; urges farmers not to mutilate their animals to make them fit intensive husbandry systems but rather to modify the systems to make them more responsive to the animal's behavioural needs; endorses the Farm Animal Welfare Councils statement that it is difficult to give general approval to any system of husbandry that relies on painful mutilations to sustain the system; and urges Her Majesty's Government to act on the Farm Animal Welfare Council's 1991 recommendation that legislation be introduced to prohibit all routine, non-therapeutic de-beaking by 1996.

This motion has been signed by a total of 93 MPs.