Effect of local anesthesia on weight gain of pre-weaning piglets submitted to castration
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.35172/rvz.2017.v24.244Keywords:
animal welfare, livestock industry, orchiectomy, swine, weight gainAbstract
The policies of welfare on animal production have been expanded to improve the animal needs
and match the demands of the consumer market. Castration represents a questionable welfare
factor related to pig production. The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of the
use of local anesthesia before castration on productive performance in pre-weaning piglets,
assessed by weight gain. Animals were divided into two treatments: 1) castration without local
anesthesia (SURG; n = 52) and 2) castration after intra-testicular local anesthesia (SURG+LA;
n = 52) when animals were three to seven days old. Piglets were weighed before (W0) and at
seven (W1) and 14 days (W2) after orchiectomy, when they were weaned. Statistical analysis
was performed by one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) followed by Student-NewmanKeuls multiple comparison test to investigate differences between groups. There were no
differences in Weight (W2) and weight gain at weaning between SURG+LA animals compared
to SURG animals (3.57 ± 0.60 kg and 3.74 ± 0.71 kg, respectively; p = 0.17). According to the
experimental conditions of this study, local anesthesia before castration of piglets does not
affect weight gain at weaning, warranting further investigation following the effect of local
anesthesia prior to castration until the slaughtering phase.
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