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Warning: This is a big topic. You can skim this article to get the basics. For more depth, read the comments with questions and answers. For even more, click through to the linked articles. Take small bites and don’t get overwhelmed.
Get in some new boars and one’s considerations go to an old story…
There was this city fellow driving out in the country who passed a farm where he sees an old man sitting out on the porch with a three legged pig hopping around in the yard. The fellow backs up and pulls into the driveway to investigate. Getting out he goes up to the farmer and says, “Good morning, sir. I couldn’t help but notice your pig only has three legs. What happened to his other leg? Did he get attacked by coyotes, a gator or fall in a leg trap?” Sponsoring Ad: “And good morning to you young fella” replies the farmer, “no, it wasn’t anything like that. You see this pig is a very fine pig. Once my wife was cooking bacon and she stepped out of the kitchen. The grease caught on fire. No one in the house knew about it but the pig and he saved me, my wife and my three kids.” “That’s amazing sir, but why does that pig only have three legs?” asked the man. “Then there was that time the pig saw a big flood coming and we didn’t. The pig ran into the house and dragged us out up on thehill. If it weren’t for that pig we would all be dead.” “Well, that is quite the miracle but how come that pig only has 3 legs?” the man said rather annoyed at all this dissembling. “Well,” said the farmer, “with a pig that special… you can’t eat him all at once.”
It’s an amusing story but sometimes you really do want to have your pig and eat it too. This issue comes up with breeder pigs. Especially when bringing in new genetics in to the herd since I don’t want to bring in .
In the past I did my taste testing post slaughter by eating progressively older boars to test them for taint but that makes it rather hard to then breed the pigs. That method isn’t going to work with the new Berkshire breeder boar Spitz who we aquired this month. I don’t want to slaughter him to taste him nor do I want to take the two years that we did to prove out the genetics in the past by tasting the offspring.
So how to do it? How to have your pig and eat it too? I suggested to Holly that I simply take a small bite and see what he tasted like. She laughed and said that Spitz might object to that. But, I had a plan. A man with a plan am I.
With wildlife, biologists routinely take small biopsies. There are special tools made for doing just this. I bought a set and a biopsying I went. Ironically, I got my from a tattoo, body art and piercing . These are medical, human grade, stainless steel tools so I figured they would work well enough for the boars.
Interesting Factoids: Most boars don’t have taint at market age. Taint is not found in a most pig breed lines. Lighter colored pig breeds are less likely to have taint. Some research suggests Red Duroc has a high incidence of taint. There is a Pacific Island breed where even females have ‘boar’ taint.[1] Taint is genetic, that is to say heritable.[2] Only about 75% of people can smell taint. Statistically women can smell taint a little more than men but some women can’t just as some men can’t smell taint. There are many kinds of taint besides ‘boar’ taint including: stress taint, blood taint and rot from improper handling of the meat. True boar taint is caused primarily by two chemicals stored in fat: Skatole produced in the small intestines and smells like manure3 Androstenone produced in testes and adrenal glands and smells like urine.3 There are several other less common chemical taints like indole. Stress at slaughter can cause taint that is often confused with boar taint. Improperbleed out causes blood taint – often confused with boar taint. Improper carcass chilling causes taint – ibid. Confinement raising increases the odds of skatole based taint. Being around a sow in heat does not cause taint.† High corn/soy diets increase the odds of taint. High fiber diets reduce the odds of taint. Boars grow about than barrows and are better at converting feed into meat.3 Barrows (castrated males) grow about 10% faster than gilt pigs. Gilts (females) tend to have the most fat and slowest growth. Some countries, many in , will soon castration. Alcohol is a good solvent for skatole – use as hand wash. Nearly nothing is absolute in the real world. Take everything with a grain of salt, Especially bacon.
Both Spitz, the new Berkshire boar, and Hamlet, the new Tamworth boar, didn’t object to the sampling. They’re pretty big boys and I was only taking a 12 cubic-mm sample from their back fat over their lumbar vertebrae, e.g., loin a.k.a. middle of the lower back. I had been prepping them for this day for well over a week by training them to accept the movements I would do to take the biopsy. To them it probably felt like getting a shot at most. I slapped the biopsy spot as I took the sample and I suspect that distraction was more noticeable than the actual biopsy. would be proud.
There are multiple types of taint: Three types of Boar Taint each caused by a different chemical; Stress Taint caused by stressing an animal just before slaughter; Blood Taint caused by failure to properly bleed a carcass; Chilling Taint caused by failure to properly chill the carcass; Handling Taint caused by failure to observer proper sanitization; and there may be other causes that make meat go bad or have an off odor. Each of these taints can happen at different points in the process and I’ve heard them all mistakenly blamed on boar taint. Boar Taint is only the first category and only caused by some very specific cases of poor genetics, poor low fiber feed and poor (confinement) management. Every single one of these can be avoided through good genetics, high fiber feeding, extensive (pasture) management, humane slaughter, proper bleed out, sanitary slaughter & cutting, proper chilling and proper handling all the way to the table.
So we took a few very little bits of our new boars, fry them up and pass the bacon around for everyone to try. No need to waste the whole pig when all you want is a tiny bite. The verdict was no boar taint in either of them. Yeah!
And that folks, is why our boars still have all four legs.
An interesting conclusion from one scientific paper on this topic: Boar taint, an undesirable odour from meat from some entire male pigs, is caused by the naturally occurring compounds androstenone and skatole. The level of boar taint can be minimized by decreasing the concentrations of those compounds in adipose tissue, e.g. via immunocastration, genetic selection, dietary manipulations and improved rearing conditions. Meat processing can probably redu- ce or mask boar taint; however, more studies are needed to investigate possible processing techniques and consumers attitudes towards final pork product. Genetic selection against high boar taint is probably the most attractive alternative, but is not realistic in the near future. At the moment, the best temporary solutions are “humane” castration using anaesthesia and analgesia, or immunocastration. The advantages and disadvantages of alternative methods should be carefully studied before the final decision is made about how toprevent boar taint without the need of stressful and painful surgical . It is generally believed that in future, surgical castration of male piglets can be avoided and replaced by practical and ethically acceptable alternatives. Zamaratskaia, tehnologija mesa 50 (2009) 1-2, 43-47
In other words: good genetics, good management and good diet.
For more about boar taint try this .
An interesting taint factoid is that that most of these types taint can occur with barrows, gilts and sows as well as with boars. Castration isn’t going to help in those cases. There is even a Pacific islands type of pig where the sows have the boar type taint.
Update 20150925: Interestingly, more and more the big industry is starting to recognize that boar taint is something that can be controlled and eliminated through genetics, feed and management as shown in the recent article in Pig Progress Magazine. This is something we’ve been doing for a decade as of 2015 with our pastured pigs. It is good to see the big boys getting on board.
Also see: , and for additional information.
Outdoors: 73°F/43°F Sunny Tiny Cottage: 74°F/64°F
Daily Spark: I’m not an Atheist. I’m not an Agnostic. I’m a Sceptic. I believe, in reason. I have faith in mathematics. 1+1+1 = 11. As for God – the two of us are still talking.
†There is a myth that a boar being around females in heat will cause taint in the males’s meat. This is false. Around the sows in heat the boars are broadcasting pheromones from their saliva which you may smell but that doesn’t go into the boars meat. Research on flavor development shows that it takes a minimum of two weeks, really more like a month for flavor to go into meat (actually the fat – intermuscular, back fat, etc).
Note: Standard Disclaimer Applies You’re responsible for what you do, be careful around big animals and of doing what some fool (me) on the internet does. We’re “professionals” so beware of trying this at home, or work as Jamie and Adam might say. Seriously though, train your boars before your bore them.
[1], Penn State Univerisity, May 2001
[2], Pork Magazine, January 17th, 2011
[3] Animal / Volume 3 / Issue 11 / November 2009, pp 1508-1521, G. Zamaratskaia and E. J. Squires. Abstract: Pork odour is to a great extent affected by the presence of malodorous compounds, mainly androstenone and skatole. The present review outlines the current state of knowledge about factors involved in the regulation of androstenone and skatole in entire male pigs. Androstenone is a pheromonal steroid synthesised in the testes and metabolised in the liver. Part of androstenone accumulates in adipose tissue causing a urine-like odour. Skatole is produced in the large intestine by bacterial degradation of tryptophan and metabolised by hepatic cytochrome P450 enzymes and sulphotransferase. The un-metabolised part accumulates in adipose tissue, causing faecal-like odour. Androstenone levels are mostly determined by genetic factors and stage of puberty, whereas skatole levels in addition to genetic background and hormonal status of the pigs are also controlled by nutritional andenvironmental factors. To reduce the risk of tainted carcasses entering the market, male pigs are surgically castrated in many countries. However, entire males compared to castrates have superior production characteristics: higher growth rate, better feed efficiency and leaner carcasses. Additionally, animal welfare aspects are currently of particular importance in light of increasing consumers’ concerns. Nutrition, hormonal status, genetic influence on boar taint compounds and the methods to develop genetic markers are discussed. Boar taint due to high levels of skatole and androstenone is moderately heritable and not all market weight entire males have boar taint; it should thus be possible to select for pigs that do not have boar taint. In these studies, it is critical to assess the steroidogenic potential of the pigs in order to separate late-maturing pigs from those with a low genetic potential for boar taint. A number of candidate genes for boar taint have been identified andwork is continuing to develop genetic markers for low boar taint. More research is needed to clarify the factors involved in the development of boar taint and to develop additional methods to prevent the accumulation of high concentrations of skatole and androstenone in fat. This review proposes those areas requiring further research.
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