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Pain management

Alternatives to Piglet Castration: From Issues to Solutions

By April 7th, 2021April 21st, 2021No Comments

Document type: Scientific article published in Animals

Authors: Ulrike Weiler, Maria Font-i-Furnols, Igor Tomasevič, Michel Bonneau

Preview: Because castrated male pigs convert feed into meat less efficiently than entire males, they are less efficient regarding the utilization of resources. Moreover, surgical castration without pain relief is painful to the piglet. This is why there is a growing consensus, at least in Western Europe, that it should be abandoned. There are currently three possible alternatives: surgical castration with pain relief, immunocastration, also known as vaccination against boar taint, and raising entire males.

Using anesthesia and/or analgesia during surgical castration prevents pain to the piglet. Still, this can be considered only as an intermediate solution for the short-term because it is still adverse to animal integrity, it is still resource-inefficient and it adds costs. For these reasons, surgical castration with pain relief is not sustainable for the long run in mainstream production, even if it might possibly be a solution for some production systems aiming at very high-quality products. The review papers presented in this special issue focus on the two remaining alternatives: entire males and immunocastration.

This special issue has been prepared within the framework of the cost action CA15215 "IPEMA"(Innovative approaches in pork production with entire males). It contains six review papers representing the deliverables of IPEMA, a 7th review paper sponsored by IPEMA, and additional research papers. The present paper provides a quick summary of the issues raised by the possible alternatives to piglet castration (entire male production and immunocastration), the solutions that can be implemented now, and the knowledge that is still missing or actions that are still to be further developed. The readers are invited to read the reviews for more details and references.

IPEMA organized a webinar on 15 September 2020 to share knowledge with stakeholders. At the end of the present paper, we provide the links to the various presentations prepared for the webinar, to the answers to the questions asked during the webinar, and also to a video-recording of the panel discussion that was organized during the webinar.

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