The aim to perform a comprehensive comparison for production data between castrated and vaccinated male could not be performed. Partly as surgical castration and vaccination were not performed during the same period, and partly because pigs were not sorted by sex at slaughter- house. Therefore, the comparison is made between a period when piglets were surgically cas- trated and a period when the pigs were vaccinated.
Average lean meat content was 57.9 % and carcass weight was 85.4 kg when the herd used castration. These results are not different from the results of today with vaccination - lean meat content is 58.0 % and carcass weight is 85.2 kg.
6. DISCUSSION
Vaccination can be performed earliest at eight weeks of age and it should be at least four weeks between first and second injection according to the recommendation of the manufacture. In our study pigs in the two first batches were vaccinated at an age of 14 and 18 weeks, i.e. 4-6 weeks before slaughter, according to the recommendations. Due to very high growth rate in the herd this resulted in too heavy pigs at slaughter. Therefore, vaccination in batches 3-6 was performed earlier, at approximately 12 and 16 weeks of age. Results from previous studies have shown that vaccination can be performed even earlier (Andersson et al., 2012; Brewster and Nevel, 2013; Brunius et al., 2011) and that the effect of vaccination last at least 10 weeks making it possible to send pigs to slaughter during a longer period, than the recommended 4-6 weeks between second vaccination and slaughter.
In the interval from birth to weaning, it could be expected that growth performance of castrated pigs should be lower than that of females and entire male pigs, as they undergo a surgical pro- cedure that could affect their general health. However, in this study the castrated males had a higher initial weight than the entire male pigs implying that their growth rate was higher during the suckling period. These results are in contrast with the results of Zamaratskaia et al. (2008a), who found that surgical castrated piglets had a lower daily growth gain during the suckling period compared to entire male piglets. Also Cronin et al. (2003) found a lower growth gain in this period for castrated piglets compared to entire male piglets. Previous studies have shown that growth performance does not differ in this period (Andersson et al., 2012; Pauly et al., 2009). None of the authors sited in this paper have reported a higher growth performance for castrated than for entire pigs.
Between first and second vaccination, both restrictively and semi ad libitum fed vaccinated male pigs had significantly higher growth rate and lower feed conversion ratio than castrates. This indicates that vaccination might have had an effect already after first injection. Dunshea
et al. (2001) reported a higher growth rate of castrated male pigs in this period, whereas An-
dersson et al. (2012) and Zamaratskaia et al. (2008b) found similar growth rate for castrates and vaccinated pigs. One reason for the difference in growth rate in this study could be that pigs
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are produced in a Specific Pathogen Free (SPF) production. Pigs in such systems are not ex- posed to pathogens which are common in commercial pig production and they have therefore a higher feed intake and growth rate.
After second vaccination, growth rate of vaccinated and castrated male pigs on both feeding regimens was similar, whereas many authors have reported an increased growth rate similar to castrates and in many cases even higher for vaccinated male pigs than for castrates in this period (Cronin et al., 2003; Dunshea et al., 2001; Zamaratskaia et al., 2008a). Results for the whole experimental period showed that vaccinated male pigs on semi ad libitum feeding had signifi- cantly higher daily weight gain than castrates, whereas no difference was found when the pigs were restrictively fed. Some authors have concluded that the increase in growth rate after sec- ond vaccination is related to a higher feed intake. However, in this study daily feed consumption during the different periods of rearing and for the whole growing-finishing period was similar for vaccinated and castrated male pigs. Consequently, the total feed conversion ratio was lower for vaccinated male pigs than for castrates when fed semi ad libitum.
Dressing percentage of semi ad libitum fed vaccinated male pigs was lower (P=0.025) compared to castrated male pigs, which was also found by Andersson et al. (2012). The lower dressing percentage could partly be due to the weight of reproductive organs (Einarsson et al., 2011) of vaccinated male pigs. However, this measurement was not included in this study. The lower dressing percentage could also be due to higher content of abdominal fat. For restrictively fed pigs, dressing percentage was similar between treatments. Commercial lean meat content did not differ between vaccinated and castrates regardless of feeding regimen. However, Andersson
et al. (1997) found that lean meat content of vaccinated male pigs is underestimated by the
commercial grading system used in Sweden. Previous studies have shown that vaccinated pigs had lean meat content between entire male pigs and castrates (Jaros et al., 2005; Fàbrega et al., 2010).
Daily feed consumption after second vaccination was approximately 78 % (2.40 kg per day) of the daily feed intake of semi ad libitum (2.80 kg per day) fed pigs. Growth rate for restrictively fed pigs declined after second vaccination, when the maximum feed allowance according to the applied feeding regimen (SLU-normen) was reached. This is in line with the results of Quinou (2012) who saw that a restriction at a lower level (2.50 kg per day) reduces total average daily gain. Batorek et al. (2012) used a higher level (2.75 kg per day) of restriction and did not find any effect on growth rate. But the restricted feeding regime in the study by Batorek et al (2012) is almost as high as the semi ad libitum feeding regime in our study which could be a possible explanation why they could not see any effect on growth rate. Higher daily lean meat growth for vaccinated male pigs on semi ad libitum feeding regime was the only significant difference seen between the two feeding regimens. .
Results for the whole experimental period showed that vaccinated male pigs on semi ad libitum feeding had significantly higher daily weight gain, lower feed conversion ratio and higher daily lean meat growth compared to castrates with similar feed consumption. The results indicate that the higher growth potential of entire males can be utilised when vaccination is used and that the growing-finishing period can be shortened. Our results are not in agreement with Dunshea et
al. (2001), Jaros et al., (2005) and Zamaratskaia et al. (2008a), who could not find any differ-
ence in total daily weight gain. For restrictively fed pigs the growth rate and feed conversion ratio were similar for vaccinated and castrated pigs. Our results showed that a higher feeding regimen than the recommended feeding regimen in Sweden should be applied to vaccinated male pigs to use their potential.
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Before second vaccination, activity behaviours such as sleeping, lying down and standing, did not differ significantly between treatments. At the third observation occasion, after second vac- cination, a higher frequency of vaccinated pigs was sleeping, whereas more castrated pigs were resting. Inactive behaviours, resting and sleeping, increased over time and active behaviour decreased for both treatments. Similar pattern was seen by Brewster and Nevel (2013) although in their study they reported an increase in active behaviour at 21 weeks of age, 7 weeks after second vaccination. This increase in activity at an age of 20 weeks was also seen by Fàbrega et
al. (2010). In our study, behaviour was recorded at approximately 12, 16 and 21-22 weeks of
age (last recording differing because we had to adjust time of slaughter to the slaughter house) and therefore we might have missed the time when the increase in activity occurred. In our study pigs had a high growth rate and were slaughtered at approximately 22 weeks of age, in the studies by Fábrega et al. (2010) and Brewster and Nevel (2013) where pigs were slaughtered at approximately 25 weeks of age. However, slaughtered occurred at the same live weight as in the study by Fábrega et al (2010), indicating that our pigs might have passed this stage. Before first vaccination, there was a tendency that entire male pigs (intended to be vaccinated) were more aggressive and they performed more sexual behaviour than castrates. This resulted in more vaccinated pigs with skin lesions. However, the proportion of long-lasting behaviours was low and was not higher than for castrates, indicating that the interactions were not so severe. Just as stated previously, entire male pigs express more sexual and aggressive behaviour than castrates (Dunshea et al., 2001; Fábrega et al., 2010; Pauly et al., 2009). Andersson et al. (2011) reported more aggressive and sexual behaviour of entire male pigs. They also reported that at this time the vaccinated pigs had more contact with each other than the castrates had, which is in disagreement with our results where no difference was observed.
At the second observation occasion, which took place just before second vaccination, the vac- cinated pigs still were more aggressive than the castrates. However, their sexual behaviour and skin lesions had decreased to similar level as for castrates, although, they are expected to still behave like entire male pigs. Andersson et al. (2011) reported that the vaccinated pigs at this time had decreased sexual behaviour to a level between castrates and entire male pigs.
After the second vaccination, the number of aggressive behaviour of vaccinated pigs had de- creased and was similar to castrates. This is in agreement with those results published by other authors (Andersson et al., 2011; Brewster and Nevel, 2013). At this time, no mountings were observed at all, in line with Brewster and Nevel (2013).
7. CONCLUSION
Vaccination against GnRH with Improvac® was successfully accomplished in this study. Re- sults showed that vaccination has potential to increase daily weight gain, daily lean meat growth and to get a lower feed conversion ratio compared to castrated male pigs under a semi ad libitum feeding regime. Vaccination was also effective in reducing aggressive and sexual behaviour to same levels as for castrates and is not affecting animal welfare negatively. Restrictive feeding did not improve performance or carcass characteristics of vaccinated compared to castrated male pigs in this study.
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8. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
First I like to thank Kristina Andersson, my supervisor, for all the help and support during this study. I have learnt so much and you are such a wonderful person!
Thanks also to all staff at Swedish Livestock Research Centre, Lövsta, for helping me and tak- ing excellent care of the animals, and Maria Lundesjö Ahnström at Lövsta Slakteri for collect- ing data from the slaughter house.
And a special thanks to Christer Hylander and his staff for taking time for my interview, I wish you all the best with your production in the future!
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