Raising entire male pigs without castration improves welfare by avoiding surgical pain, and management strategies minimize the aggression and boar taint issues that make production of entire males challenging.
Entire male pig production offers a welfare improvement by eliminating surgical castration pain, but introduces management challenges from testosterone-driven aggression. Well-managed entire male production provides adequate space, appropriate social grouping, and management techniques that reduce fighting-related welfare harm. The net welfare outcome — avoiding weeks of castration pain in exchange for managed testosterone-related aggression — favors entire male production when the management is competent. The commercial challenge of boar taint in some markets is being addressed by detection technology that enables taint segregation without requiring castration.