The importance of pigs’ castration strategy on carbon footprint of feed intake, nitrogen and phosphorus efficiency under different management conditions

•We studied the effect of sex category on environmental sustainability.•Castrating impairs environmental sustainability in all trials.•Differences between trials are larger than differences between sex categories.•Improving feed efficiency and tailoring diets to animal’s needs is crucial.•Ending phy...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Animal (Cambridge, England) England), 2022-12, Vol.16 (12), p.100669, Article 100669
Main Authors: Van den Broeke, A., De Cuyper, C., Kress, K., Stefanski, V., Škrlep, M., Čandek-Potokar, M., Maribo, H., Millet, S.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animal Feed - analysis
Animals
Barrow
Boar
Carbon Footprint
Eating
Global warming potential
Immunocastrate
Male
Nitrogen
Nitrogen and phosphorus emission
Orchiectomy - veterinary
Phosphorus
Swine
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Summary:•We studied the effect of sex category on environmental sustainability.•Castrating impairs environmental sustainability in all trials.•Differences between trials are larger than differences between sex categories.•Improving feed efficiency and tailoring diets to animal’s needs is crucial.•Ending physical castration supports the reduction in nutrient excretion. The environmental impact of livestock production is under scrutiny nowadays and is being situated both on a global level and local level. On a global level, the global warming potential (GWP) of meat production is criticised. On a local level, the excretion of nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) is of concern as excess nutrients may lead to water eutrophication and soil acidification. The ERA-NET project SuSI evaluated if immunocastration may act as an ecologically, socially and economic more sustainable alternative compared to pork production with surgical castrates (SCs) and boars (BOs). Here, we report the environmental impact of immunocastrates (ICs) vs SC and BO, based on four trials carried out by European SuSi partners. More specifically, we aimed to compare IC with SC and BO in terms of GWP, N and P excretion per kg of pork production and test if this differed between experiments. There was an interaction between trial and sex category (PTrial × Sex category 
ISSN:1751-7311
1751-732X
DOI:10.1016/j.animal.2022.100669