From now and in the coming years, two-thirds of the economic breeding progress will come from robustness. In your herd, you will experience higher survival for both sows and piglets as well as increased strength in the pigs.
The prognosis for DanBred’s breeding progress indicates that robustness will be the biggest contributor to the economic breeding progress in the coming years. Piglet survival is already delivering significant results. With an increase in piglet survival of 1 percentage point in 2023, you can now see the robustness in your pig production.
“When we look into the future, we expect more breeding progress for piglet and sow survival, which are actually the biggest contributors in the breeding goal for DanBred Landrace and DanBred Yorkshire. Our unique definition and data collection for sow survival together with the other robustness traits means that two-thirds of the economic breeding progress comes from robustness,” says Lizette Vestergaard Horndrup, Project Director in Danish Agriculture & Food Council Sector for Pig, Breeding & Genetics.
The highest profit in your production
In our breeding programme, we work towards increasing robustness all the way from birth to slaughter with the pig producers’ bottom line in mind. This means that breeding for a higher survival rate in sows, piglets and finishers helps to increase your bottom line.
More robust pigs contributes to a greater economic value for you as well as a welfare and health gain for the pigs. An efficient pig production that benefits both the bottom line and the climate can easily coexist with healthy and robust pigs. This is clearly seen in the prognosis for DanBred’s breeding progress in the coming years, where sow survival and piglet survival are the largest contributors to the overall economic breeding progress.
It is expected that sow survival for pigs with DanBred genetics will increase by almost 1 percentage point in the coming years, when the breeding progress is fully reflected in the production herds.
Improved mothering abilities
The next trait that we are working to implement in our breeding goals is litter weight gain. Litter weight gain is the total weight of the litter from litter equalisation until weaning.
Line Busk Jensen, Project Manager in Breeding & Genetics, explains why litter growth is the trait DanBred will focus on rather than, for example, the number of teats:
“In the few studies that have been done on the subject, no significant genetic correlations have been found between the number of teats and litter weight. Therefore, the number of teats does not directly indicate how many piglets the sow can take care of and how much milk yield a sow actually has, which means it is a poor indicator of what is actually desired from the sow. To the extent that the number of teats is important, it will also be affected by selection for litter growth.”
