Exploratory Survey on European Consumer and Stakeholder Attitudes towards Alternatives for Surgical Castration of Piglets

Abstract

Surgical castration of piglets without pain relief is still common practice in many countries. Possible alternatives for surgical castration are application of pain relief or anaesthesia or production of boars (entire males) and immunocastrates. Each of these alternatives faces advantages and disadvantages which may result in different citizen attitudes and consumers acceptability. Understanding which practice is acceptable to whom and why may further stimulate implementation. Consumer (n = 3251) and stakeholder (n = 1027) attitudes towards surgical castration without pain relief, surgical castration with anaesthesia, immunocastration, and production of boars were surveyed from April to June 2020 via an online questionnaire in 16 countries (>175 respondents per country). Surgical castration without pain relief was separated from each of the alternatives due to animal welfare and showed the lowest acceptability (32%). Within the alternatives, a further partitioning between the alternatives was based on perceived quality and food safety, with an acceptance of 85% for applying anaesthesia, 71% for immunocastration, and 49% for boar production. Differences depending on professional involvement and familiarity with agriculture could be observed, mainly for the acceptance of surgical castration without anaesthesia, immunocastration, and boars. Castration with anaesthesia was highly accepted by all types of respondents.

Keywords: acceptability; anaesthesia; analgesia; boar production; cluster analysis; immunocastration; infographic; online questionnaire.

Figure 1

Currently applied production methods of male pigs for the countries included in this survey. Background colour indicates the main male pig production method and the dot indicates the additionally applied methods, whilst a star indicates the method as foreseen for implementation as main method in 2021 (source: based on [4], updated by the European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) consortium).

Figure 2

Infographic with information was provided before questioning the acceptance and attitude towards the different options.

Figure 3

Acceptability of castration alternatives per country for (a) Castration without pain relief—CONTROL, (b) castration with anaesthesia—ANAE, (c) Immunocastration—IMMUNO, (d) no castration—BOAR. TOT—total sample.

Figure 4

Frequence of Check-All-That-Apply (CATA) scoring of the ideal piece of pork (IDEAL), castration without pain relief (CONTROL), castration with anaesthesia (ANAE), immunocastration (IMMUNO), and no castration (BOAR). ^a–e different superscripts indicate significant differences between alternatives per CATA item (p < 0.05).

Figure 5

Correspondence analysis of CATA variables plotted for each alternative for the ideal piece of pork (IDEAL), castration without pain relief (CONTROL), castration with anaesthesia (ANAE), immunocastration (IMMUNO), and no castration (BOAR) with the small dots representing the results of a country per option and the large dot representing the average of each out the five options.

Figure 6

Overall level of agreement scored on a scale from 1 (totally disagree) to 7 (totally agree) towards different statements for the different castration alternatives “If the castration method was clearly labelled, I would surely buy…” (WTB), “I think that is totally safe to eat meat from …” (SAFE), “When I think about the following production method, it seems logical to me that animal welfare is best for …” (WELFARE), “If I consider the tastiness of meat, I prefer meat from…” (TASTE), ”I am completely convinced that this is the best option …” (BEST PRACTICE) for castration without pain relief—CONTROL, castration with anaesthesia—ANAE, Immunocastration — IMMUNO, and no castration—BOAR. ^a–d different superscripts indicate significant differences within statement variables per option (p < 0.05).

Figure 7

Overall level of agreement towards different statements for the different castration alternatives per country (a) “If the castration method was clearly labelled, I would surely buy…” (WTB), (b) “I think that is totally safe to eat meat from …” (SAFE), (c) “When I think about the following production method, it seems logical to me that animal welfare is best for …” (WELFARE), (d) “If I consider the tastiness of meat, I prefer meat from…” (TASTE), (e) ”I am completely convinced that this is the best option …” (BEST PRACTICE) for castration without pain relief—CONTROL, castration with anaesthesia—ANAE, Immunocastration—IMMUNO, and no castration—BOAR. ^a–d different superscripts indicate significant differences within countries per option (p < 0.05).