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Welfare Aspects of Raising Entire Male Pigs and Immunocastrates

von Borell, Eberhard; Bonneau, Michel; Holinger, Mirjam; Prunier, Armelle; Stefanski, Volker; Zöls, Susanne and Weiler, Ulrike (2020) Welfare Aspects of Raising Entire Male Pigs and Immunocastrates. Animals, 10 (11), p. 2140.

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Summary

For a long time, scientists assumed that newborns have a severely limited sense of pain (if any). However, this assumption is wrong and led to a “start of the exit” from piglet surgical castration. Some of the currently discussed or already implemented alternatives such as general or local anaesthesia during surgical castration raise additional welfare concerns as well as legal problems and/or are hardly applicable. The favoured long-term, welfare-friendly “gold standard” is to raise entire male pigs (EM). However, this may also impose certain welfare problems under the current conventional housing and management conditions. The specific types of behaviour displayed by EM such as mounting and aggressive behaviours but also increased exploration, which are partially linked to sexual maturation, increase the risk for injuries. The current status of knowledge (scientific literature and farmer experiences) on housing of EM suggests that environmental enrichment, space, group-stability, social constellation, feeding (diet and feeder space), health and climate control are critical factors to be considered for future housing systems. From an animal welfare point of view, an intermediate variant to be favoured to reduce problematic behaviour could be to slaughter EM before reaching puberty or to immunize boars early on to suppress testicular function. Immunization against endogenous GnRH can reduce EM-specific problems after the 2nd vaccination.


EPrint Type:Journal paper
Keywords:welfare, entire males, immunocastration, behaviour, housing, management, Abacus, FiBL50902
Agrovoc keywords:
Language
Value
URI
English
animal welfare
http://aims.fao.org/aos/agrovoc/c_443
English
animal behaviour
http://aims.fao.org/aos/agrovoc/c_8811
Subjects: Animal husbandry > Health and welfare
Animal husbandry > Production systems > Pigs
Research affiliation: Switzerland > FiBL - Research Institute of Organic Agriculture Switzerland > Animal > Animal welfare & housing > Animal husbandry
Switzerland > FiBL - Research Institute of Organic Agriculture Switzerland > Animal > Animal welfare & housing > Animal welfare
Switzerland > FiBL - Research Institute of Organic Agriculture Switzerland > Animal > Pigs
France > IFIP - Institut du porc
France > INRA - Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique
Germany > University of Hohenheim
Germany > Other organizations
DOI:10.3390/ani10112140
Deposited By: Holinger, Dr. sc ETH Mirjam
ID Code:38648
Deposited On:25 Nov 2020 13:50
Last Modified:31 Jan 2021 12:24
Document Language:English
Status:Published
Refereed:Peer-reviewed and accepted

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