Health and welfare issues regarding surgical castration of male piglets and its alternatives

Surgical castration without anaesthesia is increasingly recognized as a painful and welfare relevant procedure, although the systematic use of anaesthesia with or without additional analgesia for pain relief during surgical castration is currently only practiced in some countries where this was mandated or part of their national quality assurance scheme. From scientific studies it is evident that the effectiveness of pain intervention during and after surgical castration is only given when anaesthesia is combined with preemptive analgesia, although it has to be considered that additional stress and associated health and welfare risks may be imposed by the intervention itself. Previous surveys among stakeholders evidenced that the acceptance and likelihood of anaesthesia implementation will depend on authorisation of farmers to do the pain interventions after special training. However, such protocols are difficult to apply taking into account legal and economic constraints. Immunocastration is another already licensed and practiced alternative performed by farmers. Although this intervention was proven to be effective with less impact on health and welfare of pigs, this method has not achieved a broad application due to the resistance of some chain actors that fear low acceptance of this method by consumers. The widely favoured option of fattening entire males poses a risk for injuries due to unwanted behaviours under current housing and management conditions, unless pigs are slaughtered before puberty in order to reduce critical behaviours and to limit boar taint. Raising entire young males and immunocastration seem to be the preferred short term and widely usable options, whereas fattening of matured heavy entire males as a sustainable and effective long-term goal would necessitate the implementation of new genetic schemes as well as new housing and management systems and a significant effort in research