Epsilon Archive for Student Projects

Abstract

The aim of this thesis was to investigate if meat and fat quality are influenced by castration, and hence examine if it is possible to improve animal welfare by introducing immunological castration (immunocastration) as an alternative to the stressful and painful procedure of surgical castration. Immunocastration is used as an alternative to surgical castration (removal of the testes) to reduce boar taint. Boar taint is an offensive odor detectable by sensitive consumers in meat from some mature male pigs.
This literature study was performed in order to evaluate the effects of surgical and immunocastration on various aspects of meat quality. The quality aspects were subdivided into carcass quality, sensory quality, technological quality and sensory quality, particularly boar taint.
Immunological castration effectively reduce boar taint. This has been demonstrated with sensory evaluation in consumer trials, trained panels and by chemical analysis of skatole and androstenone. Overall the method of castration seems to have a weak impact on sensory quality.
When differences in carcass quality were found, the effect was small, or results were inconclusive. Furthermore, the effect sizes were low to moderate, which indicates that the impact of castration method may be of low relevance.
The castration method does not have a large impact on technological quality. In some studies, a small difference was found in the degree of saturation of the fat.
Immunological castration is valid alternative to surgical castration. A late vaccination schedule may even improve some quality parameters and be economically favourable.