Deep smell of feces and urine is a peculiarity of mature intact boars’ meat. To avoid this situation, boars are traditionally castrated on first days of life. But concern about animal welfare was an impact to invent a new method — immunocastration. You can read about its advantage in the article below.

Why does the boar smell?

By the time of puberty, boars’ organism starts to produce hormones very actively. One of them is androsterone. It has the same function as the testosterone, but tenfold less active. It stimulates development of secondary sex characters. At puberty this hormone exudes in large quantity and recedes in boar’s fatty tissues. This is pheromone that attracts gilts and sows at estrus phase.

One more source of taint is skatole. This chemical species is a metabolic by-product of bacterium in pigs’ large intestine. The liver can neutralize it, but by the time of puberty it’s overload by many other unions and hormones. That’s why non-metabolize skatole releases and recedes in fatty tissues.

How to rid of?

The origin of boar taint can be anticipated. Surgical castration in first days of animals’ life is a traditional method. Immunocastration is more innovative and humane by far. It’s actually do not influence the boar’s smell, but it suppresses the activity of testicles (sex hormones production, in particular androsterone). This helps the liver to metabolize produced skatole effectively.

1. What causes the unpleasant smell not only in boars but hogs and female pigs as well?
2. How does work the immunocastration mechanism? What does change with injections?
3. When is it better to slaughter immunocastrated boars?
4. Who gets more profit of this castration method, producer or processor?

You can find answers for these and other questions in the full version of the article in the magazine «Profitable Pig Production», № 1 (31) 2016.