What kind of feeding strategies should be used to meet nutritional requirements of entire male pigs and or immuno-castrated pigs and to reduce the risk of boar taint in meat?

Abstract

This paper reviews the available knowledge on nutritional requirements of non-surgically castrated male pigs to promote their potential for higher feed efficiency while ensuring low risk of boar taint and good carcass and meat qualities. Reasons for giving entire males ad libitum access to diets enriched with amino acids to satisfy their high potential for protein deposition are presented. This also applies to immuno-castrated male pigs, which can be fed like entire males until the second vaccination. Then their requirements for essential amino acids decrease significantly and supplies can be reduced accordingly. As boar taint is a crucial issue when producing entire male pigs, effects of incorporating various feed ingredients to reduce skatole and indole levels are discussed in terms of their efficacy and mode of action. With a low carcass adiposity, entire males have a lower intramuscular lipid content than females and barrows, which decreases the organoleptic quality of the meat. In addition, adipose tissues whose fatty acids may be highly unsaturated modify the technological aptitude of processed- and dry cured products. Accounting for these criteria in quality specifications of products may have impact and induce changes on the nutritional recommendations.