Stopping pig castration by feeding pigs with tannins

Picture copyright Choisis, INRA

Castration of male piglets is a standard practice used by the pig industry to avoid boar taint, a sensory defect of meat from boars. An initiative to abandon this practice has been undertaken by key stakeholders in European Union, which will greatly impact the pig meat sector and which has stimulated intensive research to find easy implementable alternatives to reduce boar taint. Dietary compounds have shown promising results as potential alternative to reduce boar taint. Research from Bilić-Šobot et al. shows that hydrolysable tannins should prevent boar taint by affecting metabolic pathways of boar taint substances.

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