Research article - Peer-reviewed, 2020
Leg health, growth and carcass characteristics in growing-finishing pigs of two different genotypes reared on Swedish organic farms
Wallenbeck, Anna; Eliasson, Christina; Lundeheim, Nils; Nilsson, KatjaAbstract
Increased prevalence of joint abnormalities at slaughter among pigs from organically certified herds in Sweden has been reported. Most of these abnormalities are caused by osteochondrosis, which has a genetic background. Thus, we investigated whether changing the sire breed from the commonly used Hampshire to the commercially available sire breed Duroc affected joint health and growth rate. We studied 766 commercially reared growing-finishing pigs from insemination of the mother sow until slaughter. The pigs were raised at four commercial organic farms (integrated or externally integrated, and had 40–160 sows in production)and slaughtered at one slaughter plant. We found no significant difference between the offspring of the two sire breeds regarding back conformation, leg conformation, swollen joints, locomotion or lameness at 13 or 24 weeks of age, or regarding joint abnormalities at slaughter. This indicates that clinical leg health will not be improved by changing sire breed. However, the Hampshire-sired pigs had higher daily growth rate(P< 0.008), allowing earlier slaughter.Keywords
Breed; Outdoor production; Growth rate; Leg health; Organic production; Pasture; PigPublished in
Organic Agriculture2020, volume: 10, pages: 97-103
Authors' information
Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Department of Animal Environment and Health
Eliasson, Christina
Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Department of Animal Breeding and Genetics
Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Department of Animal Breeding and Genetics
Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Department of Animal Breeding and Genetics
UKÄ Subject classification
Animal and Dairy Science
Publication Identifiers
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13165-019-00260-8
URI (permanent link to this page)
https://res.slu.se/id/publ/103033