Surgical castration with pain relief affects the health and productive performance of pigs in the suckling period

Table 1 Effect of surgical castration on growth rate in the suckling period by initial body weight group^a

Item	Intact Males	Castrated Males	SEM ^b	P value ³
Light pigs
Initial number of pigs	476	459
Body weight, day 0 (kg)	1.43	1.42	0.008	0.528
Body weight, day 28 (kg)	5.69	5.77	0.062	0.367
Average daily gain (g/day)	182.3	185.5	2.648	0.379
Medium pigs
Initial number of pigs	921	931
Body weight, day 0 (kg)	1.96	1.97	0.006	0.226
Body weight, day 28 (kg)	6.83	6.79	0.041	0.540
Average daily gain (g/day)	210.0	208.5	1.768	0.535
Heavy pigs
Initial number of pigs	451	458
Body weight, day 0 (kg)	2.55	2.57	0.012	0.388
Body weight, day 28 (kg)	7.97	7.81	0.063	0.050
Average daily gain (g/day)	237.4	230.4	2.615	0.059

^aPigs were split in three groups according to their initial body weight: light pigs (25% pigs with the lightest initial body weight), medium pigs (50% pigs with medium initial body weight) and heavy pigs (25% pigs with the heaviest initial body weight)
^bStandard Error of Mean
³ P-value for surgical castration treatment effect (Intact vs. Castrated male pigs) obtained by multiple comparisons using Tukey’s correction

ISSN: 2055-5660