Surgical castration of male animals is a routine and widely used practice in the pig breeding industry.
It is aimed at preventing boar taint, an unpleasant smell of the meat attributed to the accumulation of skatole and androstenone in the fatty tissue of sexually mature male pigs (boars), causing negative perception and rejection of such meat by the consumers (Font i Furnols et al., 2003; Bonneau and Squires, 2004).