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Research article2013Peer reviewed

Genetic analysis of teat number and litter traits in pigs

Lundeheim, Nils; Chalkias, Helena; Rydhmer, Lotta

Abstract

The aim of this study was to analyse, on data on purebred Yorkshire pigs in Swedish nucleus herds, the genetic correlation between teat number (both functional and non-functional) recorded at performance testing (at approx. 100 kg live weight), litter size at birth and litter weight at 3 weeks of age. Animal mixed-model analysis was applied on the data available (57,000 performance tested pigs, 10,000 1st-parity litters and 6500 2nd-parity litters). The estimated heritability for number of functional teats was 0.31, for number of non-functional teats 0.09 and for total number of teats 0.39. Number of non-functional teats was negatively genetically correlated with number of functional teats (r(G) = -0.34), and positively correlated with litter size (parity 1; +0.20) and number of stillborn piglets (parity 2; +0.34).

Keywords

Genetic correlations; teat quality; sow

Published in

Acta Agriculturae Scandinavica, Section A - Animal Science
2013, Volume: 63, number: 3, pages: 121-125 Publisher: TAYLOR & FRANCIS AS