The main reason millions of piglets in Europe, even in the organic pork industry, continue to be surgically castrated (a painful procedure with a lot of after-pain) is because intact boars have a small chance of developing boar taint by the time they reach “slaughter” age. This means that the overwhelming majority of boar piglets continue to be painfully castrated for no reason ! There are friendlier alternatives though. One is to simply stop castrating and instead adopt better husbandry, suitable feed and good genetics to limit boar taint and boar aggression. The other alternative is immunocastration, such as the Improvac vaccine. This simply delays the onset of puberty, and thus boar taint does not develop in the males before they are sent for slaughter. Improvac is approved by the EU and its safety is confirmed by EFSA, but sadly this technology is not often used because the pork industry, especially the organic pork industry in the Netherlands, is taking the easy way out. Even after Improvac being used on the pork market worldwide without any scandal or criticism from customers, many stakeholders in Europe continue to believe that they may risk losing customers and thus don’t accept its use. They would have to spend a lot of time and money educating retailers and consumers that there is no risk eating pork from immunocastrated pigs and they are simply not willing to do this extra work. Instead they allow the rumour to spread that immunocastration is not allowed, so that they don’t have to do any extra work ! As a consequence, millions of piglets on conventional and even organic free-range farms continue to be put through the painful procedure of surgical castration. In the Netherlands organic and many conventional piglets are even forced to inhale CO2 gas (the Sleeper restrainer) during the procedure, which causes extreme panic from the feeling of suffocation and leaves them traumatized.
Eyes on Animals supports Improvac and would like to see this vaccine as being an additional alternative, on top of leaving the piglets intact, to the horrible surgical castration of male piglets.
