LONDON (Reuters) - England's farmers must keep their pigs happy with toys and straw or face a big fine, the government said Wednesday.Farmers have been told to put a football, metal chains or hay in their pigsties to provide "environmental enrichment" for their animals.
The ruling, originally from the European Commission and now being passed into law at home, is designed to stop pigs from getting bored and attacking each other.
"(It is) to allow pigs to forage with their snout, which is an important behavioral need," said a spokesman for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA).
Farmers can use straw and hay instead of toys if their sties have solid floors.
Anyone breaking the rules faces a fine of up to 2,500 pounds, DEFRA said.
Farmers recovering from the 2001 foot and mouth epidemic which saw millions of animals slaughtered said the legislation was hard to take seriously.
"It really is unbelievable," Neville Meeker, who farms 1,200 pigs in Wiltshire, western England, told Reuters. "Every farmer I've spoken to think it's hilarious."
Unusual EU directives are a staple of euroskeptic British newspapers which regularly lampoon "meddling eurocrats."
In 1999, Britain was the seventh largest pig producer in the EU, with over 14 million pigs being slaughtered.
