Piglet castration causes significant pain and is among the most common painful procedures in pig farming, with pain management methods and alternatives available but insufficiently used.
Surgical castration without adequate pain relief causes acute and post-operative pain to millions of piglets annually. The procedure involves incising the scrotum and removing the testes - without anesthesia, this is clearly painful based on pain-specific vocalizations and movement patterns. Post-operative pain persists for hours to days. The scale of suffering is enormous - tens of millions of piglets undergo this procedure annually in Europe alone. Effective pain management is available - local anesthesia and NSAIDs substantially reduce pain - but their use remains inconsistent. The transition to immunocastration would eliminate surgical pain entirely while achieving the same commercial objectives.