Objective: animal welfare policy: information on attitudes toward castration

The project will provide information about the castration of piglets in the EU and in Flanders. This will support policy on the welfare implications of surgical castration in pigs.

Castration of piglets is common practice in most countries. Castration prevents boar taint, an unpleasant odour and flavour released by cooking the meat of intact boars. Most farmers castrate piglets surgically without using anaesthesia or analgesia. This is rapid and inexpensive. However, because it is painful to the animal, animal rights activists oppose the procedure. Society also increasingly rejects this practice.

This study reviews the practice of surgical castration and a number of potential alternatives. All 27 EU countries are evaluated for:

• extent of concern about surgical castration of piglets without anesthesia
• attitudes of the various stakeholders towards this practice
• possible alternatives
• variance in these attitudes across EU countries

Results and conclusions: sperm sexing considered second-best alternative by Flemish pig farmers

Of the 125 million male pigs are slaughtered in Europe each year, our results yielded the following estimates of castration methods used:

• Castrated without anaesthesia: approximately 77%
• Non-castrated (entire): 20%
• Castrated with anaesthesia: less than 3%

There is considerable variation in castration procedures both within and between countries.

Alternatives preferred by most stakeholder groups were sperm sexing and castration with anaesthesia.

Farmers’ organisations prefer to continue castrating without anaesthesia. Raising entire males and immunocastration is less popular among most groups (except for animal welfare organizations).

Flemish pig producers’ preference for the various alternatives is in this order:

1. castration without anaesthesia
2. sperm sexing
3. castration with anaesthesia
4. immunocastration
5. entire males

The Flemish citizen’s opinion of immunocastration is as follows:

• improves animal welfare
• improves consumer acceptance
• improves type of labour for the farmers
• lowers food safety
• increases cost

The Flemish citizen is willing to pay extra for immunocastrated pigs: a small premium price for their meat was reported as acceptable.
The results and conclusions of the EU-PIGCAS project are available on the website http://w3.rennes.inra.fr/pigcas/index.htm

Photo: surgical castration without anaesthesia

Contact person

Frank Tuyttens

Financing

EU commission, ILVO

Running time

The project started in January 2007.

Participants

• Institute National de la Recherche Agronomique French, INRA – France
• Instituto de Recera I Tecnologia Agroalimentàries, IRTA – Spain
• Danmarks JordbrugsForskning - Denmark
• Wageningen Universiteit en Researchcentrum, Praktijkonderzoek Veehouderij, WUR – RIAH – The Netherlands
• Animalia, Norwegian Meat Research Centre (NMCR) – Norway
• University of Newcastle upon Tyne (UN) – UK
• Martin Luther Universität Halle – Wittenberg, MLU – Germany
• Sveriges LantbruksUniversitet, SLU – Sweden
• Centro Ricerche Produzioni Animali, CRPA – Italy
• Akademia Rolnicza Cracowie, ARK – Poland
• Department of Agricultural Economics, Ghent University - Belgium

References

Fredriksen B., Font i Furnols M., Lundström K., Migdal W., Prunier A., Tuyttens F.A.M., Bonneau M. (2009). Practice of castration of piglets in Europe. Animal 3, 1480-1487.

Fredriksen B., Font i Furnols M., Lundström K., Prunier A., Tuyttens F., Migdal W., Bonneau M. (2008). Practice on castration of piglets in Europe. Book of Abstracts 59th Annual EAAP Meeting, 24-27 August, Vilnius (LT), 93.

Fredriksen B., Font i Furnols M., Lundström K., Prunier A., Tuyttens F., Migdal W., Bonneau M. (2008). Practice on castration of piglets in Europe. Proc. 20th Int. Pig Veterinary Society Congress, 22-26 June, Dunbar (ZA), 4 p.

Migdal W., Fredriksen B., Bonneau M., Prunier A., Ouedraogo A., Oliver M.A., Font i Furnols M., Lundström K., Tuyttens F., Edwards S.A., von Borell E.H., De Roest K., Kupper T., Pasciak P., Migdal L. (2008). Kastracja prosiat w Europe - praktyka i pespektywy (Practice on castration of piglets in Europe). Proc. 73th Meeting of Polish Society of Animal Production, Section Pig Breeding, 26-28 June, Lublin (PL), 5 p.

Migdal W., Fredriksen B., Bonneau M., Prunier A., Ouedraogo A., Oliver M.A., Font i Furnols M., Lundström K., Tuyttens F., Edwards S.A., von Borell E.H., De Roest K., Kupper T., Pasciak P., Migdal L. (2008). Kastracja prosiat w Europie - praktyka i perspektywy. XI International Fair "Pig and Poultry Farm", 18-20 April, Poznan (PL), 66-68.

Migdal W., Fredriksen B., Bonneau M., Prunier A., Ouedraogo A., Oliver M.A., Font i Furnols M., Lundström K., Tuyttens F., Edwards S.A., von Borell E.H., De Roest K., Kupper T., Pasciak P., Migdal L. (2008). Kastracja prosiat w Europie. Trzoda Chlewna 5, maj, 88-93.

Oliver M.A., Font i Furnols M., Ouedraogo A., Gonzàlez-Armengué J., Gil M., Lundström K., Prunier A., Tuyttens F., Migdal W., Bonneau M. (2008). Stakeholders' attitudes about surgical castration and alternatives. Book of Abstracts 59th Annual EAAP, 24-27 August, Vilnius (LT), 94.

Oliver M.A., Gonzàles J., Font I Furnols M., Gil M., Velarde A., Ouedraogo A., Lundström K., Prunier, A., Tuyttens F., Migdal W., Bonneau M. (2008). Actitudes en relación de lechones y sus posibles alternativas en Europa. Eurocarne 172, Diciembre, 1-8.

Ouedraogo A., Font i Furnols M., Gonzàlez-Armengué J., Gil M., Lundström K., Prunier A., Tuyttens F., Migdal W., Oliver M.A., Bonneau M. (2008). Attitudes of different stakeholders about surgical pig castration without anaesthesia and its possible alternatives. Proc. 20th Int. Pig Veterinary Society Congress, 22-26 June, Dunbar (ZA), 1 p.

Prunier A., Font i Furnols M., Ouedraogo A.P., Lundström K., Tuyttens F., Migdal W., Bonneau M., Oliver M.A. (2008). Attitudes about surgical castration of pigs and alternatives: variation between stakeholders and countries according to the extent of the practice. Book of Abstract 4th Int. Workshop on the Assessment of Animal Welfare at Farm and Group Level, 10 -13 September, Ghent (BE), 162.

Tuyttens F., Verhille B., Vanhonacker F., Van Oeckel M.J., Isebaert S., De Brabander D.L. 2008. Attitude of Flemish pig producers concerning the castration of piglets and alternative strategies to deal with the boar taint problem: preliminary survey results. Proc. EAAP Working Group Meeting on Production and Utilisation of Meat from Entire Male Pigs, 26-27 March, Monells (ES), 80-81.

Tuyttens F., Verhille B., Vanhonacker F., Van Oeckel M.J., Bekaert K.M., De Brabander D.L., 2008. Attitude of farmers concerning alternatives for piglet castration. Book of Abstracts 59th Annual EAAP Meeting, 24-27 August, Vilnius (LT), 98.

Vanhonacker F., Tuyttens F., Verbeke W. (2008). Consumer attitude towards the surgical castration of piglets and immunocastration as a possible alternative: a flemish preliminary study. Book of Abstract 4th Int. Workshop on the Assessment of Animal Welfare at Farm and Group Level, 10 -13 September, Ghent (BE), 63.

Vanhonacker F., Verbeke W., Tuyttens F.A.M. (2008). Belgian consumer’s attitude towards castration and immunocastration of piglets. Animal Welfare 18, 371-380.

Van Oeckel M.J., Tuyttens F., Millet S. (2007). Hoe gebeurt castratie precies en wat denkt u over onverdoofde castratie en zijn alternatieven ? ILVO Nieuwsgolf, themanummer Varkens, okt., 3p.

Verhille, B. (2007-2008). Bevraging van Vlaamse varkenshouders over hun houding t.o.v. chirurgische castratie zonder verdoving en zijn alternatieven. (eindejaarsscriptie Industrieel Ingenieur Landbouw, BIOT Hogeschool Gent).

Verhille, B. (2009). Wat denkt de Vlaamse varkenshouder over de castratiealternatieven? Landbouw&techniek 2, 30 januari, 4-6.

von Borell E., Baumgartner J., Giersing M., Jäggin N., Prunier A., Tuyttens F.A.M., Edwards S. (2009). Animal welfare implications of surgical castration and its alternatives in pigs. Animal 3: 1488-1496.