# Improvest



## Jayzandra (Jul 22, 2016)

We have two sows and a boar. The boar is probably around 400 lbs. He eats a lot. The sows were bred and if they don't come back into heat in about 20 days then they're probably pregnant, right? 
So I was thinking it'd be cheaper to slaughter the big boar and buy a male piglet for the next round of breeding. 
I was trying to do some research on how to castrate a full-grown boar so that we wouldn't end up with the taint. So I ran across this stuff called improvest. Has anybody tried to use this stuff? If so can it be given to a full grown boar? I can only find information on giving it to a weaned piglet . But that doesn't make any sense to me because it's supposed to be temporary. Apparently it's been being used in other countries since 2011 and started being used here in 2013 . And it's FDA approved. If we can start using this instead of having to castrate piglets then we can breed  with boars that we later eat once they get so big that they're no longer cost effective to keep. How long after it's given do I have to wait to slaughter?


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## TAH (Jul 22, 2016)

@Ferguson K @misfitmorgan @Pamela


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## Jayzandra (Jul 22, 2016)

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## Pamela (Jul 23, 2016)

I've never heard of that product. We butchered an 800 lb boar last winter and processed all the meat into sausage. My husband and sons love it. I will eat it, but I don't 'love' it. It is very good for meatballs or Italian dishes.  My husband and a friend seasoned the meat themselves using our own dehydrated herbs.

Also, I believe a male piglet has to be at least 10 months old to be an effective breeder. That's a long time to wait for another batch of piglets.


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## misfitmorgan (Jul 26, 2016)

Boars can and will breed as young as 4-6 month its just not really common typically no one breeds that young. We generally aim for 8 months for boar to breed.

Personally i think i would much more concerned about giving a vaccine to the boar right before slaughtering then worrying about boar taint. We have castrated adult boar up to 500 lbs or so without issue but expect a lot of bleeding.  We have not had a problem with boar taint, is actually genetically related and only roughly 50% of US pigs have it. On top of that only roughly 50% of humans can smell or taste boar taint. So you have roughly a 25% overall chance of ever comming across it. I can tell you that if you butcher a boar and find boar taint dont use any of his relatives in your breeding program if your breeding for no boar taint. Maybe smaller breeders have bred out boar taint on their farms so never worry about it.

We get a new boar every 2 yrs or so because we dont let them get over 350lbs, to much feed and fat for us. We also keep them on maintenance feed, 5lbs of 17-18% per day and a bit of table/garden scraps as well as all the hay/pasture they care to eat. The result is very slow growth, pumping them up with protein is what makes them grow so fast.

I have also never heard of Improvest but i doubt i would give it to any of my pigs. I did look into it for you and it is intended to give at 4-6 months of age or older and has no withdrawal time for slaughter. FYI this same injection/drug works on people...If a human accidentally gets stuck with it they will have the same things happen to them. My concerns aside it may prove to costly, in a large operation the only cost info i can find is $5/head but there is some sort of software you have to have so the certified person who injects the boar can record and monitor their progress. Improvest is given in 2 doses 2 weeks apart and the temporary effect lasts for 10 weeks. So if you gave it at 4 months you would be able to raise the intact boar for 6.5 months before being concerned about boar taint.

This is from Improvest's website:
*
IMPORTANT SAFETY INFORMATION: *
Pregnant women should not administer IMPROVEST. Women of childbearing age, as well as men, should exercise extreme caution when administering this product. Exercise special care to prevent accidental self-injection because of negative effects on reproductive physiology in both men and women. However, there is no risk associated with consuming pork from animals administered this product. IMPROVEST should not be used in female pigs, barrows, or male pigs intended for breeding.


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## Baymule (Jul 26, 2016)

For me, I am against artificial chemicals in my food and I sure wouldn't use a product like that. Walter Jefferies, links below, is my go-to-hog-guru.  

http://sugarmtnfarm.com/2007/08/12/hi-tech-vs-boar-taint/
http://sugarmtnfarm.com/2012/03/23/have-your-pig-and-eat-it-too/

http://sugarmtnfarm.com/2006/03/28/boar-meat/


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## misfitmorgan (Jul 26, 2016)

I also found this info when looking more into it:

Some producers are breeding out the taint and avoiding the few breeds of pigs that are high in taint. Yorkshire, Hampshire and other lighter colored pigs are known to be particularly low in the androstenone based taint while Duroc pigs are high in the taint. When pigs are raised on pasture in a rotational grazing system, similar to cattle, goats and sheep, the skatole based taint does not occur because the pigs are on fresh ground and not inhaling and eating their own feces.

These number contradict the earlier numbers of 50% of boars having taint...neither has a cittation:

 About 25% of consumers cannot detect the taint chemicals and about 80% of boar pigs do not have taint. Selecting pigs for breeding that do not have taint and managing on pasture virtually eliminate any chance of boar taint and have been successfully used at many farms.

This as well:

Yes, boar taint is real, and when present, it makes the meat smell and taste awful: about 75% of consumers can detect and taste boar taint (meaning 25% of you all are off the hook though!), but 75% is a pretty good reason to eliminate taint one’s pork. However, hold the scalpel: taint is present in only about 20% of boars and male pigs. This means 80% of male pigs are being castrated unnecessarily. Taint is also differentially present according to breeds: Durocs seem to have the highest levels if incidence, while lighter colored breeds like Landrace and Yorkshire have it less. This is the genetic basis to boar taint. There are also management factors, which have to do with what causes taint. Regarding skatole, and noticing the root of the word, “skat-”, clues you in that this has to do with feces. Skatole can be produced from pigs inhaling or ingesting their own feces, which is prone to happen with pigs raised in cramped conditions. Turns out, raising hogs on pasture virtually eliminates the risk from skatole taint, a combination of having more space as well as access to high-fiber vegetation. Even after just two weeks on pasture, a hog previously with skatole will no longer have it afterward. While skatole can be present in barrows and gilts (female pigs) as well as boars, steroids produced by the boar inhibit the breakdown of skatole, so they accumulate more of it.


So basically i gather that if you pasture raise a light skin colored pig breed....there is about no reason to castrate or be worried about boar taint. I did not know speicifc breeds were predisposed to taint thats interesting. Also...as far as i know if your boar doesnt stink you can be pretty sure they dont have boar taint...when they do you KNOW.


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## Pamela (Jul 26, 2016)

Wow, I didn't know they would breed so young. That has not been our experience at all. We've tried to breed a little younger (we didn't really know what we were doing at that point) and the boar couldn't get the job done. Now we just figure on a year old.


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## misfitmorgan (Jul 27, 2016)

Pamela said:


> Wow, I didn't know they would breed so young. That has not been our experience at all. We've tried to breed a little younger (we didn't really know what we were doing at that point) and the boar couldn't get the job done. Now we just figure on a year old.



oh yes...it possible but as i said its not common. Its rather the same thing as male goats they can breed at 4months old but its not common much more common at 6-8 months. Sometimes they need a lot of "practice" and may not succesfully breed until they are older but will perform all the other actions. I think mostly those that would breed so young would be of the quick grow variety and fed a high protein diet to grow quickly but i have never really looked into it. We keep our boar off the young gilts until the gilts are at least 6+ months old depending on their growth and size. Our boars are kept separately from them, we split the sexes at 5 months generally.


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## Pamela (Jul 27, 2016)

We left a boar and two gilts in together until they were 10 months old. We saw a lot of action, but there was no result. Later, and with a different boar, we were able to get piglets out of one, but never the other. She made fine bacon though.


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## misfitmorgan (Jul 27, 2016)

We recently put our 7 month old boar on a 7.5 month old gilt and shall see if he got the job done or not. This is the second attempt the first attempt was 22 days earlier and we are now waiting to see if she comes back into heat or not. If she does we will probly do AI to verify it is the boars age/semen or the gilt.


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## Jayzandra (Jul 28, 2016)

Thanks guys. That was also the info I had read. 
What a conundrum. 
We have a 400bl boar and 2 probably pregnant sows in a 100X50 foot pen on 2.5 acres of land in the desert, so no grazing. And not enough room to separate to the point that he no longer produces the taint.  We are getting ready to divide the pen into quarters for furrowing and raise castrated meat pigs. 
The 400bl boar eats too much. if we can't eat him then what are we to do with him? 
I was hoping we wouldn't have to castrate. I don't like doing it. I think it's cruel. But we do because of the taint. I'm one that can smell and taste it. I was hoping we could get a new weaned boar and slaughter our big boar for the freezer. Our sows won't be ready to breed again until the spring anyway. (the cold will kill the babies)


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## Baymule (Jul 28, 2016)

On Walter Jeffries site, he talks about feeding hay to cut the boar taint. Since you don't have pasture, you could feed hay for a couple of months, along with his feed, then butcher him.


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## misfitmorgan (Jul 29, 2016)

As ive mentioned several times hay is good for pigs, they really enjoy it and it gives them something to do. Why would separating stop taint? The boar is already sexually active so just moving him away from the sows/gilts is not going to do it i dont think. He would still be eating his own poop. Androstenone is in the boar saliva and is a hormone, you may possibly reduce this odor...a bit but Skatole is from feces and it would not be affected.

If it is not possible to move him to a grazing area of some fashion. You could try the improvest, or adult castration but be warned it is messy messy and the boar will be utterly pissed while your doing it and for a few minutes at least after.

A third option would be keeping the pen very clean of fecal matter that will help Skatole, most people who can taste taint can only taste one or the other.....so does he smell like feces, or urine, or sweat, or what? Make sure you dont mistake the smell of their pen with the smell of them. i have been in several hog barns and the smell is bad but as soon as the hogs are outside of the barn they dont smell much at all. These are of course places with 10-100 pigs and the barn gets cleaned daily. We also have a local friend who has 3 pigs in a small pen and oh the stink.....you can smell them from 20 ft away.

A fourth option would be...sell him. If you have no further use for him and cant pasture him to get rid of taint, cant castrate him, or cant get improvest....i think thats your only option left.


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## Jayzandra (Jul 29, 2016)

From what I've read, it's secreted in the urine, not the feces. I read an article written by a guy doing his own study on his own pigs by slaughtering them at different ages and under different circumstances. So far he's come up with boars not producing any taint up the 250bl mark. (That's how they regularly do it Europe, according to the article, they don't castrate, just slaughter at a smaller size)
Anyway, he has a friend who regularly slaughters his breeding boars at 1000+bls. The way he removes the taint is by putting them out to pasture for a few months in a bachelor herd, away from the scent of any females. Apparently, they don't produce the pharamones used for breeding if there are no females around. If they aren't drooling, then that's a good sign they're producing the pharamones. I'll see if I can find the article.

We live in the desert, and their pen is very large and it does not smell. The pigs themselves don't smell. If you happen to be standing there when urinates, that smells pretty strong. 
We do put bales of hay in there for them, but they don't really eat it, they just play in it.


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## Jayzandra (Jul 29, 2016)

http://sugarmtnfarm.com/2006/03/28/boar-meat/


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## Jayzandra (Jul 29, 2016)

I wonder if this is something we could do.....
http://sugarmtnfarm.com/2012/03/23/have-your-pig-and-eat-it-too/


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## misfitmorgan (Jul 29, 2016)

This is from Sugar Mountain i have read a lot of his material in the past and recently.
They also identified the exact cause of boar taint as being _“due to the presence of high levels of androsterone and skatole.”_

Androsterone is a hormone from the saliva yes.

Skatole is from feces not urine Skato is latin for feces.

_*Skatole* or *3-methylindole* is a mildly toxic white crystalline organic compound belonging to the indole family. It occurs naturally in feces (it is produced from tryptophan in the mammalian digestive tract) and coal tar and has a strong fecal odor.

Androsterone smells like urine or sweat, skatole smells like poop. If you say your pigs dont smell then the liklihood of you even having a boar with boar taint is quite low. What breed is your boar? Or what breeds? If you can taste boar taint you should be able to smell it on the boar when he is still alive and your standing by him.
_


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## misfitmorgan (Jul 29, 2016)

Also as far as i have found neither is secreted in the urine....the hormone is in the salvia but manufactured in testes and adrenal gland. Skatole accumulates in the back fat and other fat thru out the pig. Sows in heat do not cause boar taint.


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## Jayzandra (Aug 6, 2016)

We just ordered a dozen biopsy punches. We're going to take a sample and fry it up to test for taint. If he's taint free, we're going to go ahead and slaughter him.


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## Jayzandra (Aug 6, 2016)

Yorkshire, Burkshire cross


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