Strategies to Meet Nutritional Requirements and Reduce Boar Taint in Meat from Entire Male Pigs and Immunocastrates

Abstract

Simple Summary

Raising entire male pigs and immunocastrates poses various challenges on how the nutrient requirements of these growth-efficient animals can be met. Applying the appropriate nutritional strategy will markedly affect the production efficiency and the carcass and pork quality, but will also control the incidence of boar-tainted carcasses.

Abstract

This paper reviews the current knowledge on the nutritional requirements of entire male and immunocastrated pigs to obtain an efficient growth, low boar taint level, and good carcass and meat quality. We present the reasons for offering entire males ad libitum access to the diets in order to optimize their protein deposition potential. Boar taint is one of the major issues in the production of entire males; therefore, the impact of various skatole- and indole-reducing feed ingredients is discussed regarding their efficiency and the possible mechanism affecting skatole and indole production in the hindgut. Entire males have lean carcasses, so their intramuscular fat content can be lower than that of surgical castrates or females and the adipose tissue can be highly unsaturated. The possible nutritional strategies to counteract these effects are summarized. We conclude that immunocastrates can be fed similarly to entire males until the second vaccination. However, due to the metabolic changes occurring shortly after the second vaccination, the requirements for essential amino acids are markedly lower in immunocastrates than in entire males.