Status quo-erhebung zum betriebsindividuellen management der kastration von saugferkeln in deutschland

From January 2021 onwards male piglets can only be castrated by using adequate anesthesia. Regardless of the chosen anesthetic procedure, piglet producers will be faced by changes in work processes and management, which are not sufficiently described yet. For this, the focus should not only lie on the kind of anesthesia, but include the whole castration process. It was the aim of this empirical study to generate data on the farm individual castration management in Germany. For this, a questionnaire was developed with the online survey tool Unipark and the link distributed among piglet producers. The questionnaire contained questions on the castration process, hygiene and wound management as well as pain management and alternatives to castration without anesthesia. After data cleansing, data of 74 survey participants were analyzed with SAS∗ (9.4,2016) by calculating correlations and estimating differences in mixed models. In general, great variation was found regarding all processes in the course of castration and in some areas, a need for optimization was revealed. Most participants claimed to fixate piglets between the knees (43.1%), use two parallel incisions for opening the scrotum skin (70.2%) and severe spermatic cords with a scalpel (75.0%). However, also forbidden practices such as the tearing of spermatic cords were indicated (20.3%). Here, education and knowledge transfer are needed, as the participants claiming to use this technique were significantly younger (p < 0.05). Same accounts for the application of analgesia; it was found that several participants applied no analgesics (10.3%), used analgesics only after castration (13.5%), or mixed analgesics with other compounds such as iron supplements (13.8%). Further potential for improvement was uncovered regarding wound management and hygiene of castration equipment. The utilization of this potential while maintaining the farm individual variation and considering official regulations and recommendations could significantly improve the welfare of piglets.