05.04.2017
Category: Pig
By: Mandes Verhaagh

The boars have the edge on


piglets

graph

Own calculations, Thünen WP No.64

The social demand for more animal welfare is increasingly the focus of agricultural policy. For example, the current practice of castration of piglets without anesthesia is forbidden by law in Germany from the first of January 2019. This raises the question of viable alternatives for farmers.

On this question, the Thünen Institute for Farm Economics has investigated alternatives to piglet castration without anesthesia. The study compares the economic effects of the possible alternatives. It comes to the conclusion that, under the current conditions, the fattening of boars (entire male animals) is the most profitable alternative to the current castration of male piglets.

So far, the slaughterhouses have barely accepted boars. On one hand, it could not be clarified on which stage of production the boar taint appeared first: on-farm, during transport, at arrival and waiting in the slaughter-plant, close to slaughter. On the other hand, odour controls at the slaughter line and problems of utilization are additional factor-costs. Based on missing information on the level of possible price deductions, the study has assumed that the slaughter companies do not punish unusable boars with price reductions. However, rising slaughter figures of boars would most likely and inevitably result in price reductions in the long term.

The alternative vaccination against boar taint (immunocastration) shows that the savings of costs in the piglet production and the higher fattening performance are compensated by the vaccination costs. Finally and compared with the other methods, surgical castration with anesthesia suffers from high castration costs which cannot be compensated by improved performance.

All results are available as Thünen Working Paper No. 64.

Opens external link in new windowBetriebswirtschaftliche Auswirkungen von Alternativen zur betäubungslosen Ferkelkastration in Deutschland (including English Summary)
(pdf, 700 KB)


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