Boar Mate

In some cases, commercial use has been made of reproductive pheromonal effects. For example, spraying sows with synthetic 5a-androstenone, a steroid sold under the trade name Boar Mate, helps to ready the animal for mating with a boar. 5a-Androstenone is one of two steroids in the saliva of the boar that primes the sow for mating. 

The boar sex pheromone, consisting of androstenol and androstenone, from the submaxillary salivary gland has been used commercially for artificial insemination of pigs. It was available as a spray under the trade name Suidor (formerly Jeyes Boar Mate) in Europe (Glei etal, 1989). Sows who did not assume the... 

The well-known boar pheromone was not only one of the first mammalian pheromones identified, but also the first one applied commercially. The saliva from the submaxillaiy gland contains two steroids. These are 5a-androst-16-en-3-one and So -androst-lS-en-So -ol (Fig. 7.8). They are emitted during head-to-head contact in courtship. Both individually stimulate the sow to assume the mating stance, but a mixture of the two is not more active than either compound (Melrose etal., 1971). This may be a case of adaptive redundancy. 

The boars should be of proven fertility for mating purposes. 

Once mating has been observed, each female should be paired with the same boar, once daily, until copulation no longer occurs (up to 3 days). 

Boar taint is a flavour found in the meat of boars but not of sows.) It is produced by boars and is released in a fine aerosol when the boar salivates and champs his jaws. When the sow detects the pheromone in air, she immediately adopts what is known as the mating stance in readiness for the boar. Grandisol is a sex attractant for the male boll weevil, a serious pest for cotton growers. 

At the level of chemical compounds, one compound may substitute for another, and the activity still remains the same. Different numbers and types of compounds in a single secretion may have the same effect. The puberty delay pheromone in female mice and the castoreum of beaver are examples. In the mouse, of six adrenal-dependent compounds, two acetates are active together, one pyrazine by itself, and all three together with no increase in activity (Novotny et al.). In beaver castoreum, a mixture of 12 neutrals (monoterpenes) released the same activity as 14 phenolics (Schulte et al. 1994). A third example is the combination of androstenol and androstenone that form the boar pheromone in the male pig s saliva. Both induce the sow s mating stance alone and in combination (Melrose et al., 1971). 

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