The widely held belief is that castration improves (makes more mild) the flavour of meat. We recently (sadly) had to butcher our ram. We expected the meat to be of very bad flavour but did not find that to be true. Has anyone else had an experience with this? We are also curious about the flavour of uncastrated pork. We would be happy to discontinue castrating if flavour is not compromised.

Thank you for your help. Kim

-- Anonymous, April 03, 2001

Answers

My understanding is that it is illegal to castrate pigs in the EU. We didn't do ours when I was raising pigs, and the meat tasted great to us, and only one customer ever complained out of dozens. It does affect the flavor somewhat, and the aroma when cooking, but we didnt find it offensive at all. They have to be butchered fairly young though, around 200 pounds max.

-- Anonymous, April 03, 2001

hi kim we raise pigs and we never casterate,we keep the boars seperate from the sows we've never used them for breeding then butchered them, we have never noticed a difference in flavor. we also raise 1 bull a year and we do use him to breed our cow before we butcher,we wait 30 days after breeding, during this time we pour the grain to him and keep him in a bull pen,the meat from them taste no different than from a casterated bull, i know this as we've done it both ways. cindy

-- Anonymous, April 04, 2001

I would castrate pigs without a doubt .I cannot stand the smell , it gets worse with time .

-- Anonymous, April 06, 2001

Patty, thank you for your reply. Are you referring to the smell of the living pigs or the smell of the meat when you cook it? Kim

-- Anonymous, April 06, 2001

I am raising meat goats and the breeder I got my does from told me that the intact goats get more money the the cut ones. I don't know yet because this is my first year. Just what I was told.

-- Anonymous, April 08, 2001