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Conference poster2016

Good legs means good stayability of the sows

Hong, Thu Le; Norberg, E.; Nielsen, B.; Madsen, P.; Nilsson, Katja; Lundeheim, Nils

Abstract

Leg weakness is one of the major reasons for culling of sows. Improvement of leg conformation is expected to improve both animal welfare and producers' profit. We summarize here the possibilities to breed for better legs/ gaits and the potential influence on reproduction and stayability, based on data on Landrace and Yorkshire sows in Sweden and Denmark. Purebred young pigs were scored for leg conformation traits at performance testing (5 months of age) in our studies. Leg conformation traits were analyzed together with litter size in parities 1 and 2 and stayability traits (culled or not culled after parity 1 or parity 2), recorded on purebred sows in nucleus and multiplier herds. Genetic (co)variances between traits were estimated. We estimated heritabilities for leg conformation traits ranging from 0.02 to 0.20 depending on breed and population. Estimated genetic correlations between leg conformation and litter size were favorable for Swedish Yorkshire (+0.15 to +0.42), but unfavorable in the Danish populations (-0.17 to -0.46). Estimated correlations between leg conformation and stayability were favorable in both Swedish Yorkshire and the Danish populations (0.12 to 0.42). Our results indicate that leg conformation can be improved by selection. Indirect selection for improved stayability based on leg conformation traits would be possible but influenced by the size of the genetic correlations between traits. Our ongoing project on genome wide association study using high density SNP chip is expected to identify chromosome regions associated with leg traits in three Danish pig populations (Landrace, Yorkshire and Duroc). Results from this study could be used as prior information in genomic selection, helping to more effectively improve leg conformation and accordingly improve sow longevity.

Published in

Annual meeting of the European Association for Animal Production
2016, number: 22, pages: 378-378
Title: Book of Abstracts of the 67th Annual Meeting of the European Federation of Animal Science
ISBN: 978-90-8686-284-9, eISBN: 978-90-8686-830-8
Publisher: Wageningen Academic Publishers
DOI: 10.3920/978-90-8686-830-8

Conference

67th Annual Meeting of the European Federation of Animal Science