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Our study aimed at evaluating the quality of pork from entire (EN), surgical castrated (CC) or immunocastrated (IC) male pigs after or without mixing during the pre-slaughter period. A total of 60 Pietrain X (Large White X Landrace) pigs were used in two replicates, each involving one pen of 10 pigs per sexual type. In each pen, 5 pigs were slaughtered without social stress during the pre?slaughter period, whereas the 5 remaining pigs were mixed in lairage at the slaughterhouse with 5 non experimental pigs from the same building, for about 18 h before slaughter.
IC and EN pigs had similar carcass lean meat content, whereas CC pigs had fatter carcasses (P<0.001). At slaughter, the number of skin lesions and the blood creatine kinase activity were similar between EN,
CC and IC pigs, but were highly increased in mixed compared with non?mixed pigs (P<0,026), indicating agonistic behaviour. Meat pH 30min and 24h, colour, drip loss and lipid content were not affected by sexual type or mixing in the Longissimus and Semimembranosus, whereas pH 24h was increased in the Semispinalis after mixing (P<0.001), as a consequence of agonistic behaviour. Halothane genotype (Nn vs NN) also influenced some meat quality traits. However, interactions between sexual type and mixing or genotype were not significant, indicating that in our study, EN, CC and IC pigs exhibited similar reactivity to preslaughter stress.
B. Lebret, C. Delgado Andrade, S. Claude, A. Prunier. Qualité de la viande de porcs mâles entiers, castrés ou immunocastrés : influence de la conduite pré-abattage. 2012. Journées Recherche Porcine, 44, 49-50.
