Surgical castration of piglets without anaesthetic is widely practised to prevent boar taint in pork, but immunocastration and on-farm detection methods offer welfare-positive alternatives that are gaining industry adoption.
Surgical castration of piglets causes genuine acute pain — piglets vocalise intensely and show pain-related behaviour during and after the procedure. Post-operative pain persists for days. The procedure is performed on millions of animals without anaesthetic because economic and logistical barriers to pain relief remain high in conventional production. Immunocastration achieves the same taint-prevention outcome without surgery, requires only two injections, and is widely used in Brazil and Australia. The resistance to adopting welfare-positive alternatives in Europe and North America is primarily commercial conservatism rather than technical constraint. Consumer demand for higher-welfare pork is a meaningful driver of industry change.