ISTAT

animals Article Sutureless Technique for Surgical Castration in Adult Boars: A Feasibility Study Stella Maria Teresa Romeo, Sarah Morrone , Toufic Akl, Antonio Scanu and Nicolò Columbano * Department of Veterinary Medicine, University of Sassari, 07100 Sassari, Italy * Correspondence: ncolumbano@uniss.it Simple Summary: The use of boars for breeding purposes is common on small farms in rural regions of Italy. These animals are butchered at the end of their reproductive life for the production of charcuterie. In this regard, orchiectomy is required to remove boar taint caused by testosterone metabolites. The purpose of this study is to validate the efficacy of a safe, rapid and inexpensive castration procedure. To accomplish this objective, 91 boars were orchiectomised using the suture lig- ation technique. Following castration, characteristics of the severed ductus deference were evaluated in order to understand how much force would be required to tie knots without breaking the deferens and achieving proper haemostasis. After identifying a correlation between tensile strength and the age and weight of boars, a sutureless technique was successfully applied to 20 animals. Abstract: The heterogeneity of Italian manufacturing processes results in the production of a large variety of pork products. In Sardinia, boars are raised and butchered to produce charcuterie. These animals are castrated before slaughter as androstenone would otherwise taint the meat, rendering it unfit for human consumption. However, to date, the literature concerning surgical orchiectomy in adult boars is limited. The goal of this study is to assess whether a sutureless swine orchiectomy procedure is feasible. Additionally, this study aims to determine the appropriate traction force needed to tie

animals Article Exploratory Survey on European Consumer and Stakeholder Attitudes towards Alternatives for Surgical Castration of Piglets Marijke Aluwé 1, *, Evert Heyrman 1 , João M. Almeida 2 , Jakub Babol 3 , Gianni Battacone 4 , Jaroslav Čítek 5 , Maria Font i Furnols 6 , Andriy Getya 7 , Danijel Karolyi 8 , Eliza Kostyra 9 , Kevin Kress 10 , Goran Kušec 11 , Daniel Mörlein 12 , Anastasia Semenova 13 , Martin Škrlep 14 , Todor Stoyanchev 15 , Igor Tomašević 16 , Liliana Tudoreanu 17 , Maren Van Son 18 , Sylwia Żakowska-Biemans 9 , Galia Zamaratskaia 19 , Alice Van den Broeke 1 and Macarena Egea 20 1 Flanders Research Institute for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (ILVO), Animal Sciences Unit, 9090 Melle, Belgium; evert.heyrman@ilvo.vlaanderen.be (E.H.); alice.vandenbroeke@ilvo.vlaanderen.be (A.V.d.B.) 2 Instituto Nacional de Investigação Agrária e Veterinária (INIAV), Quinta da Fonte Boa, 2005-048 Vale de Santarém, Portugal; joaoalmeida@iniav.pt 3 Department of Biomedical Science and Veterinary Public Health, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Box 7015, 750 07 Uppsala, Sweden; jakub.babol@slu.se 4 Department of Agriculture, University of Sassari, Viale Italia 39, 07100 Sassari, Italy; battacon@uniss.it 5 Department of Animal Science, Faculty of Agrobiology, Food and Natural Resources, Czech University of Life Sciences Prague (CZU), Kamycka 129, 16500 Prague, Czech Republic; citek@af.czu.cz 6 Institute for Food and Agriculture Research and Technology (IRTA), Product Quality Program, Finca Camps i Armet, 17121 Monells, Girona, Spain; maria.font@irta.cat 7 Animal Breeding Department, National University of Life and Environmental Sciences of Ukraine (NULES), Henerala Rodimtseva 19, 03041 Kyiv, Ukraine; getya@ukr.net 8 Department of Animal

animals Article Exploratory Survey on European Consumer and Stakeholder Attitudes towards Alternatives for Surgical Castration of Piglets Marijke Aluwé 1, *, Evert Heyrman 1 , João M. Almeida 2 , Jakub Babol 3 , Gianni Battacone 4 , Jaroslav Čítek 5 , Maria Font i Furnols 6 , Andriy Getya 7 , Danijel Karolyi 8 , Eliza Kostyra 9 , Kevin Kress 10 , Goran Kušec 11 , Daniel Mörlein 12 , Anastasia Semenova 13 , Martin Škrlep 14 , Todor Stoyanchev 15 , Igor Tomašević 16 , Liliana Tudoreanu 17 , Maren Van Son 18 , Sylwia Żakowska-Biemans 9 , Galia Zamaratskaia 19 , Alice Van den Broeke 1 and Macarena Egea 20 1 Flanders Research Institute for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (ILVO), Animal Sciences Unit, 9090 Melle, Belgium; evert.heyrman@ilvo.vlaanderen.be (E.H.); alice.vandenbroeke@ilvo.vlaanderen.be (A.V.d.B.) 2 Instituto Nacional de Investigação Agrária e Veterinária (INIAV), Quinta da Fonte Boa, 2005-048 Vale de Santarém, Portugal; joaoalmeida@iniav.pt 3 Department of Biomedical Science and Veterinary Public Health, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Box 7015, 750 07 Uppsala, Sweden; jakub.babol@slu.se 4 Department of Agriculture, University of Sassari, Viale Italia 39, 07100 Sassari, Italy; battacon@uniss.it 5 Department of Animal Science, Faculty of Agrobiology, Food and Natural Resources, Czech University of Life Sciences Prague (CZU), Kamycka 129, 16500 Prague, Czech Republic; citek@af.czu.cz 6 Institute for Food and Agriculture Research and Technology (IRTA), Product Quality Program, Finca Camps i Armet, 17121 Monells, Girona, Spain; maria.font@irta.cat 7 Animal Breeding Department, National University of Life and Environmental Sciences of Ukraine (NULES), Henerala Rodimtseva 19, 03041 Kyiv, Ukraine; getya@ukr.net 8 Department of Animal

…According to the National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT), the distributed under the terms and Italian pork sector is valued at roughly EUR 1.7 billion, of which processed pork makes conditions of…

d 300g, and an 18 gauge needle, used to stimulate the wound and surrounding skin ITALY respectively, at various pre-determined sites. Neonatal piglets receiving topical anaesthesia Received: June 25, 2017 (Tri-Solfen®) spray into castration wounds had significantly lower wound sensitivity Accepted: October 30, 2017 responses for up to 4h, compared to those castrated following intra-testicular lignocaine injection or those with no treatment. The use of topical anaesthetic is suggested as a practi- Published: November 15, 2017 cal and affordable method of improving piglet welfare during castration. Copyright: © 2017 Lomax et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original Introduction author and source are credited. Castration of male piglets is a routine husbandry procedure commonly performed within the Data Availability Statement: Data are available as first few days of life in commercial piggeries globally. Extensive research to assess the effect of supplementary file S4. castration on the welfare of the piglets indicates that castration causes significant stress, pain Funding: This work was funded by Australian Pork and discomfort that can persist for up to 4 days [1–4]. Limited with topical anaesthetic formulation Castration of piglets is usually performed without anaesthesia or analgesia, presumably supplied by Bayer Animal Health. The funder had because the anaesthetic techniques commonly used for comparable surgeries in human and no role in the design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the veterinary medicine (general anaesthesia or sedation, local anaesthetic

d 300g, and an 18 gauge needle, used to stimulate the wound and surrounding skin ITALY respectively, at various pre-determined sites. Neonatal piglets receiving topical anaesthesia Received: June 25, 2017 (Tri-Solfen®) spray into castration wounds had significantly lower wound sensitivity Accepted: October 30, 2017 responses for up to 4h, compared to those castrated following intra-testicular lignocaine injection or those with no treatment. The use of topical anaesthetic is suggested as a practi- Published: November 15, 2017 cal and affordable method of improving piglet welfare during castration. Copyright: © 2017 Lomax et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original Introduction author and source are credited. Castration of male piglets is a routine husbandry procedure commonly performed within the Data Availability Statement: Data are available as first few days of life in commercial piggeries globally. Extensive research to assess the effect of supplementary file S4. castration on the welfare of the piglets indicates that castration causes significant stress, pain Funding: This work was funded by Australian Pork and discomfort that can persist for up to 4 days [1–4]. Limited with topical anaesthetic formulation Castration of piglets is usually performed without anaesthesia or analgesia, presumably supplied by Bayer Animal Health. The funder had because the anaesthetic techniques commonly used for comparable surgeries in human and no role in the design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the veterinary medicine (general anaesthesia or sedation, local anaesthetic

d 300g, and an 18 gauge needle, used to stimulate the wound and surrounding skin ITALY respectively, at various pre-determined sites. Neonatal piglets receiving topical anaesthesia Received: June 25, 2017 (Tri-Solfen®) spray into castration wounds had significantly lower wound sensitivity Accepted: October 30, 2017 responses for up to 4h, compared to those castrated following intra-testicular lignocaine injection or those with no treatment. The use of topical anaesthetic is suggested as a practi- Published: November 15, 2017 cal and affordable method of improving piglet welfare during castration. Copyright: © 2017 Lomax et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original Introduction author and source are credited. Castration of male piglets is a routine husbandry procedure commonly performed within the Data Availability Statement: Data are available as first few days of life in commercial piggeries globally. Extensive research to assess the effect of supplementary file S4. castration on the welfare of the piglets indicates that castration causes significant stress, pain Funding: This work was funded by Australian Pork and discomfort that can persist for up to 4 days [1–4]. Limited with topical anaesthetic formulation Castration of piglets is usually performed without anaesthesia or analgesia, presumably supplied by Bayer Animal Health. The funder had because the anaesthetic techniques commonly used for comparable surgeries in human and no role in the design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the veterinary medicine (general anaesthesia or sedation, local anaesthetic

PWM was higher in CM than in IM groups (6.3% vs 3.6%; p < 0.001), especially in the light (12.2% vs 6.2%; p = 0.02) and in the medium (5.5% vs 2.7%; p = 0.04) weight groups. In the heaviest pigs group PWM was not affected by castration, but IM tended to show higher ADG (p = 0.06) and showed higher BWW (8.0 kg vs 7.8 kg; p = 0.05) than CM. There were no differences in percentage of pigs treated with antibiotics between the two groups (5.8% vs 5.8%; p = 0.98) in this study. Furthermore, PigMAP was increased in CM the day after castration (0.944 mg/ml vs 0.847 mg/ml; p = 0.025), but there was no difference between CM and IM groups at day 10. Conclusions: Surgical castration has a negative impact on production in the suckling period because it causes an increase in PWM, especially in pigs in the three lower quartiles for body weight, and negatively affects the BWW in pigs born in the highest quartile for body weight. Keywords: Boar breeding, Entire boars, Pre-weaning pig mortality, Stop castration, Suckling piglet, Surgical castration, Swine * Correspondence: joaquin.morales@pigchamp-pro.com 1 PigCHAMP Pro Europa S.L. c, Santa Catalina, 10, Segovia, Spain Full list of author information is available at the end of the article © The Author(s). 2017 Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made

PWM was higher in CM than in IM groups (6.3% vs 3.6%; p < 0.001), especially in the light (12.2% vs 6.2%; p = 0.02) and in the medium (5.5% vs 2.7%; p = 0.04) weight groups. In the heaviest pigs group PWM was not affected by castration, but IM tended to show higher ADG (p = 0.06) and showed higher BWW (8.0 kg vs 7.8 kg; p = 0.05) than CM. There were no differences in percentage of pigs treated with antibiotics between the two groups (5.8% vs 5.8%; p = 0.98) in this study. Furthermore, PigMAP was increased in CM the day after castration (0.944 mg/ml vs 0.847 mg/ml; p = 0.025), but there was no difference between CM and IM groups at day 10. Conclusions: Surgical castration has a negative impact on production in the suckling period because it causes an increase in PWM, especially in pigs in the three lower quartiles for body weight, and negatively affects the BWW in pigs born in the highest quartile for body weight. Keywords: Boar breeding, Entire boars, Pre-weaning pig mortality, Stop castration, Suckling piglet, Surgical castration, Swine * Correspondence: joaquin.morales@pigchamp-pro.com 1 PigCHAMP Pro Europa S.L. c, Santa Catalina, 10, Segovia, Spain Full list of author information is available at the end of the article © The Author(s). 2017 Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made

PWM was higher in CM than in IM groups (6.3% vs 3.6%; p < 0.001), especially in the light (12.2% vs 6.2%; p = 0.02) and in the medium (5.5% vs 2.7%; p = 0.04) weight groups. In the heaviest pigs group PWM was not affected by castration, but IM tended to show higher ADG (p = 0.06) and showed higher BWW (8.0 kg vs 7.8 kg; p = 0.05) than CM. There were no differences in percentage of pigs treated with antibiotics between the two groups (5.8% vs 5.8%; p = 0.98) in this study. Furthermore, PigMAP was increased in CM the day after castration (0.944 mg/ml vs 0.847 mg/ml; p = 0.025), but there was no difference between CM and IM groups at day 10. Conclusions: Surgical castration has a negative impact on production in the suckling period because it causes an increase in PWM, especially in pigs in the three lower quartiles for body weight, and negatively affects the BWW in pigs born in the highest quartile for body weight. Keywords: Boar breeding, Entire boars, Pre-weaning pig mortality, Stop castration, Suckling piglet, Surgical castration, Swine * Correspondence: joaquin.morales@pigchamp-pro.com 1 PigCHAMP Pro Europa S.L. c, Santa Catalina, 10, Segovia, Spain Full list of author information is available at the end of the article © The Author(s). 2017 Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made