Viktor Evert, Business Manager of «Pfizer veterynarni preparaty».

Sergiy Nedogybchenko, manager of «Improvak» project in Ukraine.

The problem of smooth pig production has been increasing worldwide rapidly for consumers prefer to eat «happy» pork and they protest against animal cruelty. It calls forth not only respect for such procedures as cutting tails and blunting pig canines but also an increased attention of animal welfare organizations (in EU in particular) to the physical gelding of boars which is painful and dangerous procedure. In December in 2011 the European Commission adopted European Declaration on alternatives to surgical castration of pigs according to which EU pig producers should give up the traditional procedure completely by 2018.

So scientists and pig producers all over the world are facing difficult task of finding reliable alternative methods for the refusal of castration gives rise to new economical and management problems among which are aggressive behavior of ungelded animals towards each other and personnel, possible injury of animals and damages of carcasses caused by contractions and active sexual behavior and the threat of bad pork odour. There’s a deal of questions and we suggest we should look for answers together.

What is the specific scent of a boar?

This is a sharp odour which corresponds to the smell of feces and urine by its saturation. However consumers do not feel it the same way. Numerous experiments showed out that 25% of people are very sensitive but 50% of them do not find a significant difference. We wonder women are more sensitive to boar scent than men and some ethnic groups have a particular sensitiveness.

There are two substances responsible for a specific pork smell: skatole and androstenon. Androstenon is a metabolite of the male sex hormone of testosterone which is produced by the testes. Skatole is a metabolite of tryptophan which is the product of bacteria vital activity in large intestine of pigs. As opposed to androstenon which is a pheromone in pigs skatole has no biological sexual function but it can accumulate in fat and muscle tissues of boars as well. Metabolism of skatole of entire males is slower because of male steroid hormones effect on metabolic conversion in the liver.

What is the mechanism of appearance of specific body scent of boars?

The process starts with the formation of the hypothalamus gonadotropic releasing factor — GnRF hormone. By turn it launches a cascade of hormonal reactions regulating development and function of the testes. GnRF gets into hypophysis by means of bloodstream where it binds to specific hormone-receptors and as result two hormones are freed: LH ( luteinizing) and FSH (follicle-stimulating ). They get to testes with bloodstream where they stimulate the secretion of sex steroid hormones; one of them is androstenon. The second substance that impacts the specific odour formation is skatole. It is formed meanwhile the process of partial breakdown of protein in large intestine. These two substances are able to accumulate in subcutaneous and intermuscular fat and having reached a critical concentration they result in such characteristic boar odour.

What are the actual alternatives to surgical castration currently existing in the world?

What is immune castration?

What is the mechanism of conducting of immune castration?

What are the advantages of immune castration?

What myths do restrain adoption of immune castration?

At what stage is the implementation of immune castration in Ukraine now?

Has there been any formal experience of the preparation usage in Ukraine?

You can read more in the magazine publication «Profitable Pig Production», № 4 (10), 2012