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. 2017 Sep 6:3:18.
doi: 10.1186/s40813-017-0066-1. eCollection 2017.

Surgical castration with pain relief affects the health and productive performance of pigs in the suckling period

Joaquin Morales  1 , Andre Dereu  2 , Alberto Manso  1 , Laura de Frutos  1 , Carlos Piñeiro  1 , Edgar G Manzanilla  3 , Niels Wuyts  2
Affiliations

Surgical castration with pain relief affects the health and productive performance of pigs in the suckling period

Joaquin Morales et al. Porcine Health Manag. .

Abstract

Background: Surgical castration is still practiced in many EU countries to avoid undesirable aggressive behavior and boar taint in male pigs. However, evidence shows that castration is painful and has a detrimental influence on pig health. This study investigated the clinical and productive effects of surgical castration in the suckling period. A total of 3696 male pigs, 3 to 6 days old, comprising of 721 litters from two different farms were included in the study. Within each litter, half of the males were kept as intact males (IM) and half were surgically castrated (CM). Surgical castration was conducted by a trained farmer. Average daily gain (ADG), body weight at weaning (BWW), percentage of pre-weaning mortality (PWM) and antibiotic usage were measured. Pig major acute phase protein (PigMAP) serum concentrations were analyzed prior to castration, and on days 1 and 10 after castration. Productive performance data were analyzed using a linear mixed model. Mortality and percentage of pigs treated with antibiotics were analyzed using the Fisher's exact test.

Results: No overall differences in BWW and ADG were observed between the two groups. However, differences were observed when the same effects were analyzed in the 25% lightest, 50% medium and 25% heaviest pigs at birth. PWM was higher in CM than in IM groups (6.3% vs 3.6%; p < 0.001), especially in the light (12.2% vs 6.2%; p = 0.02) and in the medium (5.5% vs 2.7%; p = 0.04) weight groups. In the heaviest pigs group PWM was not affected by castration, but IM tended to show higher ADG (p = 0.06) and showed higher BWW (8.0 kg vs 7.8 kg; p = 0.05) than CM. There were no differences in percentage of pigs treated with antibiotics between the two groups (5.8% vs 5.8%; p = 0.98) in this study. Furthermore, PigMAP was increased in CM the day after castration (0.944 mg/ml vs 0.847 mg/ml; p = 0.025), but there was no difference between CM and IM groups at day 10.

Conclusions: Surgical castration has a negative impact on production in the suckling period because it causes an increase in PWM, especially in pigs in the three lower quartiles for body weight, and negatively affects the BWW in pigs born in the highest quartile for body weight.

Keywords: Boar breeding; Entire boars; Pre-weaning pig mortality; Stop castration; Suckling piglet; Surgical castration; Swine.

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Conflict of interest statement

Ethics approval and consent to participate

An owner consent was completed by the farmers prior to the enrolment of his animals in the study. This study was conducted in compliance with the Good Clinical Practice Guidance Document #85, May 9, 2001 (VICH GL9). Animal care and experimental procedures used in this study followed regulations and guidelines of the Spanish government for the protection of animals used for scientific research (Real Decreto Español 223/88 BOE 67: 8509–8511).

Consent for publication

All authors consent to the publication of the present manuscript.

Competing interests

AD and NW are employees from the company sponsor.

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Different reasons of losses in intact and in castrated male pigs during the suckling period in percent. Number of cases is detailed in each column
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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