Surgical procedures with anaesthesia and analgesia - pork
Level: Advanced
In addition to anaesthesia given during castration, administering analgesia during the procedure can prolong theeffect of the anaesthesia, and has also been shown to reduce the amount of pain-related behaviour after the procedure.1 By requiring that analgesia must always be administered in addition to anaesthesia, contracting authorities can contribute to surgical procedures causing less stress and pain for the animals.
Details
- Type:
- Technical specification
- ID:
- 11397
- Group:
- Pork
Criterion text
Pork must be derived from animals that have been anaesthetised during any and all surgical procedures. If piglets are castrated surgically, they must be anaesthetised for the procedure. In addition to anaesthesia, analgesia (NSAIDs) must be administered during any and all surgical procedures.
Verification
Upon request the supplier shall be ready to present, for example, one of the following:
- Certification that meets the requirement, such as IP Sigill gris, KRAV or other certification showing that the requirement is met.
Proposed follow-up
Monitoring of compliance during the contract period can for example be done through sampling at one or several occasions of one or several products for which the criterion applies. The supplier can prove that the product(s) meet the requirement through, e.g,:
- Product labelling, e.g., Svenskt Sigill, KRAV or other labels showing that the requirement is met.
- Other written documentation showing that the requirement is met, e.g., audit records, veterinary records or inspection reports.
Subject matter of contract
Products of pork with environmental and animal protection criteria
Information about the criterion
The criteria may limit market availiability for individual products.
Motive
One reason why boars are castrated is to avoid the so-called boar taint, an unpleasant taste and smell in meat from some uncastrated male pigs. Another reason for castration is to reduce the occurrence of aggressive and sexual behaviour in male pigs. Surgical castration along with anaesthesia and analgesia causes much less suffering for the pigs than the practise of performing castration without anaesthesia, the prevalence of which is considered to be an animal welfare problem.1
In 2010, at the initiation of the European Commission, a voluntary declaration was prepared for alternatives to surgical castration, which included the ambition that surgical castration should completely cease by 2018. 2 An alternative to surgical castration is vaccination against boar taint, so-called immunocastration. Vaccination against boar taint means that the pig is not castrated trough a surgical procedure. Some consequences of vaccination have been noted, such as health and safety risks and uncertainty about consumer response.3 A vaccine exists that is approved by the EU and may therefore be used in Sweden.4 There are however no certification schemes which require immunocastraton today which means that it is complicated to set as a criteria for public procurement since it is very hard to monitor compliance.
Versions history
The version date indicates when the sustainability criterion was created or last updated. Last reviewed dated tells when we last checked that the sustainability criterion still is relevant.
- Current ID
- 11397
- Version date
- 2020-03-25
2020-03-25: original version