Content
Castration of piglets is a necessary procedure when raising pigs for meat. The operation is considered uncomplicated and is often performed by the sow owner himself. When performing castration on your own without the necessary skills, it is easy to make a mistake and harm the piglet.
Why are pigs and piglets castrated?
It would be easier for a private owner to leave the piglets uncastrated and not worry about complications during castration. In fact, you can only keep a piglet as a boar if the piglet is intended for breeding. It is more economical to castrate the remaining piglets.
A castrated pig is calmer, gains weight better, and its meat does not have a specific unpleasant odor. No operations are performed on pigs, even if females are also intended for slaughter. Pig meat has no smell. It is illogical to deprive a sow of the opportunity to reproduce.
At what age are piglets castrated?
Castration of piglets is carried out from the age of 10 days to infinity. The main requirement is no later than 1.5 months before slaughter. Usually piglets are castrated at 10-45 days of age. But the younger the pig, the easier it will survive the operation. Small boars are easier to handle; with some skill, one person can handle them. It is already difficult for one person to restrain piglets at the age of one month, and with a 2-month-old one, difficulties may arise even when attracting an assistant.
Is it possible to castrate an adult boar?
If the boar has grown to adulthood, it means that it is used as a breeder. Castration of large boars is carried out after culling and 1.5-2 months before slaughter. Old animals do not tolerate emasculation well. In adult boars, it is also difficult to separate the vaginal membrane from the skin of the scrotum. But since the boar is intended for slaughter, few people care how well he will survive the operation. If there are complications, the boar will be slaughtered earlier than planned.
Dates
The main problem with castration is flies that can lay eggs in wounds. At agricultural complexes, flies are eliminated “on the approach” of these insects. For a private owner, flies are inevitable near animals. Ideally, piglets should be castrated at home during the cold season. But a pig piglets 2 times a year. One of the farrowings will definitely fall on warm days. Since it is better to castrate piglets at an early age, castration will have to be carried out regardless of the season.
Methods of castration
Castration of piglets is carried out by open and closed methods and only by the bloody method, that is, with the complete removal of the testes. This is due to the anatomy of pigs.While in other domestic animals the testicles are located outside the abdominal cavity in the scrotum, in boars they are inside the body. In young piglets, the testes are not even visible from the outside. In older boars, depending on the breed, the testicles may stick out halfway.
But even in an old boar, castration cannot be carried out using any method other than blood.
The closed method of castration is preferable for boars, since they often experience dilation of the inguinal canals. When removing the testes in an open manner, prolapse of the viscera through castration wounds may occur.
The choice of castration method depends on the preference of the owner or veterinarian. From an observer's point of view, there is almost no difference between them. When closed, the testicle is removed along with the common vaginal membrane, that is, the testis is “closed”. When opened, the tunica vaginalis is also cut, that is, the testis is “opened.” In this case, only the testicle is removed. The tunica vaginalis remains in the scrotum.
In total, there are only 2 methods of bloodless castration: chemical and squeezing the blood flow in the scrotum. The latter is today called elastration after the development of special rings and 4-pointed forceps. But previously, for the same purposes, a ligature was used, which was placed with a special castration knot on the scrotum between the testicles and the abdomen.
Preparing an animal for castration
Before castration, piglets are not fed for a day to empty the intestines and avoid bloat or suffocation by vomiting. Immediately before castration, animals are allowed to go for a walk to empty their bladder and bowels.
When castrating young piglets, anesthesia is usually not performed or is done after the operation. In the latter case, this is not anesthesia, but an injection of an analgesic that reduces pain.
When castrating older boars, anesthesia will be necessary. Pigs are very strong and quite aggressive animals. This especially applies to wild boars.
In preparation for surgery, a large boar is fixed by the upper jaw with a rope loop. The rope is secured to a pole, ring or anything else, but at floor level.
Castration is carried out in a lying or standing position. To avoid unnecessary aggression, an antipsychotic is administered intramuscularly before local anesthesia. Most often, it is chlorpromazine.
For castration in the supine position, intratesticular anesthesia with sodium thiopental is used. If castration is carried out on a standing boar, then 10 ml of 3% novocaine is injected into the thickness of each testis.
Preparation of tools and materials
To castrate 10-14 day old piglets, you will need special combination forceps with a built-in blade. You can do without them, but forceps are much more convenient and do not allow you to make a larger incision than necessary. In addition to forceps, you will need 2 syringes: with an analgesic and an antibiotic. Castration is carried out in a closed manner, but due to the size of the piglet, even a ligature is not applied to the spermatic cord.
For older piglets, these tongs are no longer suitable. The older the pig, the thicker its skin. In addition to making the cut too small, the combination forceps will no longer be able to penetrate the skin.
To dry older piglets you will need:
- scalpel/razor blade;
- surgical needle;
- material for ligature;
- surgical forceps, Zand forceps or emasculator.
You need to be careful with the latter, as it cuts the spermatic cord. Scissors for castration of piglets are used only after applying a ligature, otherwise bleeding may begin. In young animals, a clamp is often used instead of a ligature. Zand forceps are used for castration of adult boars.
All instruments are sterilized. Since there is usually no autoclave at home, they use “boiling” metal instruments for half an hour or “rinsing” in antiseptic solutions. The ligature is taken either sterile, or before use it is treated with disinfectants:
- chlorhexidine;
- furatsilin solution;
- potassium permanganate;
- hydrogen peroxide.
Almost any strong thread can be used for the ligature. It can be silk, catgut, even nylon.
This substance corrodes organic matter, and catgut is made from the wall of the small intestine of small cattle. But the advantage of catgut is that it dissolves inside the body without creating the danger of suppuration.
When castrating fairly large piglets alone, it is convenient to use a castration machine. It is also disinfected before use. If the machine is not available, its functions are performed by an assistant.
How to properly castrate piglets
At home, piglets can be properly castrated in only two ways: “on a cliff” and “on a ligature.” “On the cliff”, piglets are castrated at the end of the suckling period. In this case, the open method is more often used. Older piglets are castrated “for ligature”, and here both open and closed methods are possible.
Open and closed methods of castration of piglets differ in that in the first, only the testis is removed, leaving a common vaginal membrane.When closed, everything that “jumped out of the scrotum” is cut off.
In this case, the incision will need to be stitched. If the incisions are too large, there is a risk of an inguinal hernia or viscera protruding through the wound.
With any method, piglets are fixed on their back or left side, bringing all 4 legs together. It is acceptable to hold the piglet upside down.
Closed method
The closed method is used for castration “by ligature”. Using a scalpel or blade, carefully cut the skin on the scrotum parallel to the “median” seam. Additionally, the fascia and the muscular-elastic membrane are cut without touching the common vaginal membrane. The testis, covered by the vaginal membrane, is removed from the wound.
The testicle is pulled out until the thinned part of the spermatic cord appears. The edges of the scrotum are moved to the inguinal ring and a ligature is placed on the spermatic cord. After this, the cord is cut between the ligature and the testicle. The distance from the ligature to the cut is 2 cm.
Open method
In the open method, piglets are castrated “for ligature” and “for breakage”. “For ligature” they castrate in almost the same way as with the closed method, but only the testicle is removed, also cutting the vaginal membrane and leaving it in the abdominal cavity. After the tunica vaginalis, the testicle is separated from it and a ligature is tied with a castration knot on the thin part of the spermatic cord. Then it is cut at a distance of 2 cm from the ligature and between the testicle and the node.
Castration "overflow"
It is used only for open castration of piglets. An incision is made on the scrotum parallel to the “suture” and at a distance of 1-1.5 cm from it. The incision is made from the back to the abdomen and along the entire length of the testis.The tunica vaginalis is opened either simultaneously with the skin incision or separately. Separate the testis from the membrane. If necessary, use a scalpel or scissors.
Hemostatic tweezers are placed on the spermatic cord, holding it with the left hand. The tweezers are placed as close to the inguinal canal as possible. With the right hand, grab the spermatic cord and with a quick jerk break it off close to the tweezers. After this, the tweezers can be removed. The wound is filled with an antiseptic.
A very rustic way of castrating piglets “on a cliff” in the video below. The method is not bloodless, as the owner of the video claims. He's just plain bloody. It’s just that a person confuses bloodless, that is, without surgical intervention, and bloody methods of castration.
Piglets with this method of castration are at high risk of bleeding, since the blood vessel supplying the testis was not properly clamped. It was simply twisted several times.
Chemical method
Chemical castration of boars is still an exotic method that few people trust. Castration is carried out by injection of the drug Improvak. The drug was developed in 1998 in Australia. It also went on sale there for the first time. The action of the drug is based on the suppression of testosterone production by the testes. Boars who received Improvak have smaller testicles than those who were not castrated.
Improvak injection should be done twice with a break of at least 4 weeks. It is permissible to inject Improvak from 2 months. The last injection is given at least 5 weeks before slaughter. The cost of the drug is about 8 thousand rubles. The bottle is designed for 50 doses. The volume of one dose is 2 ml.
Elastration
With the help of an elastrator, piglets are not castrated at all. They have a different scrotum structure, and the testicles are located in the abdominal cavity.The elastrator looks like four-pronged tongs with curved ends. Put a tight rubber ring on the closed tongs and, squeezing the handle, stretch it. The scrotum with the testes is threaded inside the elastic band so that the testicles are completely inside the ring. After that, the handles of the tongs are released and the elastic band is carefully removed from the tips of the tongs. Objective: to compress the blood flow over the testes.
A similar function is performed by a stitching ligature, which is also used to tighten the spermatic cords along with the skin of the scrotum over the testicles. Strictly speaking, this type of castration could be performed even with the help of a simple string, but a guarantee is needed that when the testes die and mummify, the string will not budge.
In this regard, the rubber ring has an advantage: its internal diameter is 5-7 mm. When placing it over the scrotum, the rubber will first be stretched. Later, when the testes dry out, the ring will shrink. Eventually, the testicles, along with the scrotum, will fall off on their own.
But since piglets’ testes are located differently, this method is not suitable for them. It is not even suitable for castrating an adult boar, whose testicles protrude halfway from the abdominal cavity. In general, elastration can only be carried out on certain types of animals:
- goats;
- rams;
- bulls.
Even stallions find it difficult to pull back the scrotum enough to avoid touching anything other than the spermatic cords. And, given the maximum diameter to which the ring of a household elastrator can be stretched, the bulls are also in question. Only the youngest ones. Therefore, using the bloodless method, bull calves are bred using tongs or a special elastrator for bull calves, which works differently than a household one.
Caring for piglets after castration
After removing the testicles, antiseptic ointments or powders are applied. Streptomycin and iodoform are often used. Externally, the wounds of piglets are treated with antibacterial drugs. It is convenient to use veterinary antibiotic sprays.
The piglets are placed on clean bedding and the progress of healing is monitored for several days. If the operation was unsuccessful, the wound began to fester, the piglet was injected with an antibiotic and a veterinarian was called to open the cavity with pus. If you don't have a veterinarian within reach, you can try opening it yourself. The piglet doesn’t care anymore: if you don’t open it, he will definitely die; if opened, he would have a better chance of survival.
How to castrate a large boar
If it is necessary to castrate an adult boar, it is better to invite a veterinarian to do this. If the boar is still young, then the need for castration is usually caused by his excessive aggressiveness. An older breeding boar will also not be delighted with the owner’s idea of depriving him of his ability to reproduce. Castration of large boars is mostly done with sedatives. Sometimes it can be difficult to calculate the dose. In some cases, the drug, on the contrary, causes agitation and aggression.
There is another difficulty: in adult boars it is difficult to separate the vaginal membrane from the skin of the scrotum during closed castration. But with older animals, open is preferable. The advantage of castrating an adult boar is that it is difficult to make a mistake with the length of the incision.
Operation technique
When the anesthesia takes effect, the testis is grabbed with the left hand and the skin of the scrotum is cut along with the vaginal membrane. The internal vaginal ligament is easily torn and can be torn with the fingers.The spermatic cord is separated and a ligature of strong silk thread or catgut No. 8-10 is applied to its thin part. The following are possible options:
- at a distance of 2 cm from the ligature, the cord is cut with scissors;
- At the same distance, forceps are applied to the cord and the testis is unscrewed.
Castration wounds are treated with antiseptic drugs. If the boar's testicles were very large, it is advisable to stitch the wounds. The incisions are sutured with synthetic thread, making loop-shaped sutures. One thread for each seam. Most often, 3 stitches are made. All 4 edges of the wound are stitched with threads at the same time. They are not tied at first. After stitching, the threads are tightened, bringing the edges of the wounds closer together. A suspension of antibiotic or sulfonamide is injected into both wound cavities using a long tip near the bottle. Next, the stitches are pulled together and the threads are tied.
Conclusion
Castration of piglets is a simple operation, easily tolerated by boars. But it is advisable to do it as early as possible. The later a pig is castrated, the greater the chance of complications after surgery.
