Expert opinion
last update:Oct 23, 2007
Piglet castration with anaesthesia - what are the Dutch doing?
It was announced earlier in the year that Dutch supermarkets said they would
only sell meat from farms where the male piglets have received anaesthetics
prior to castration - what are the Dutch farmers actually
doing?
It was announced earlier in the year that Dutch supermarkets said they would
only sell meat from farms where the male piglets have received anaesthetics
prior to castration - what are the Dutch farmers actually doing?
There
was an excellent study published by Haga and Ranheim (2004) from Norway that
looked at the effects of administering a local anaesthetic and castration on the
pain response in piglets, who had already been anaesthetised using a gaseous
anaesthetic halothane.
Although the piglets were anaesthetised, they
responded to stimuli such as injections of local anaesthetic into the spermatic
cord (intrafunicularly) or into the testis and also to castration subsequently,
by increases in their blood pressure, measured by an intra-arterial catheter.
The results are summarised in Figure 1.
Figure 1. Blood
pressure responses in piglets after injections of local anaesthetic and
castration.
Interestingly,
there was a response to injections either into the cord or more so into the
testis, showing that the injections themselves induce some pain. However, when
it came to castration the piglets not receiving local anaesthetic exhibited a
much higher pain response (although they were under general anaesthesia) than
the injected piglets. The pigs, which were injected into the testicle showed the
least response.
When castrating calves (in my practice days) the
intratesticular injection was extremely effective, but they were comparatively
easy to inject due to their pendulous nature, unlike piglets.
In the UK,
we do not castrate and our meat quality suffers for it because of boar taint.
Currently, there are no local anaesthetics licensed for pigs, but they can be
used under cascade.
There are also no signs of Improvac® from Pfizer yet
- their new immuno-castration product - although it is hoped it will be
available next year.
The EFSA is discussing piglet castration under
welfare in November and it would be very useful to have a practical feed back
from the Dutch vets and farmers on what they are doing and how they are getting
on?
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