Educational materials on alternative methods to surgical pig castration

The EU Animal Welfare Platform held its ninth meeting on June 22, 2021. One of the topic was alternative methods to surgical pig castration. At the Platform meeting information was provided on educational material supporting the dissemination of best practices in the production, the processing and the marketing of meat from entire male pigs or pigs vaccinated against boar taint.

The education material included twelve factsheets in twenty-four languages and one video addressing the whole production chain in English language and with subtitles in twenty-two languages. USB sticks for dissemination are available.

Themes the educational material focusses on are:

• How to reduce boar taint at farm level
• How to detect boar taint at slaughterhouse
• How to deal with meat with detectable boar taint
• How to increase market value of meat from uncastrated pigs
• How to vaccinate pigs
• How to ensure at farm level that vaccinated pigs will not have boar taint
• How to trust farmers that vaccinated pigs will not have boar taint
• How to increase acceptance of meat from vaccinated pigs.

Download here the presentation.