A. A. Belous, E. A. Trebunskih
L.K. Ernst Federal Research Center for Animal Husbandry, pos. Dubrovitsy, 60, Podol’skii r-n, Moskovskaya obl., 142132, Russian Federation
Abstract. To increase meat production in pig crossbreeding, it is necessary to implement and improve the genetic potential of purebred animals as soon as possible. Increasing the efficiency of breeding for economically useful qualities requires the search for new breeding indicators. The research aimed to study the genetic and phenotypic correlation between feeding behaviour parameters of Landrace (n = 155) and Duroc (n = 766) pigs, reared at automatic feeding stations, as potential indicators for inclusion in the breeding programmes. Comparative analysis revealed a significant number of close genetic correlations with equal coefficients in both studied pig breeds. Thus, for the Landrace pigs, the correlation coefficient between the number of visits and the time spent at the feeding station was 0.815; for the Duroc pigs it was 0.536; the correlation coefficient between the number of visits to the feeding station and the average daily food consumption was 0.622 and 0.641, respectively. The average feed consumption per visit strongly inversely correlated with the frequency of visits to the station (for the Landrace pigs, it was -0.968; for the Duroc pigs, it was -0.721) and with the time spent at the feeding station (-0.767 and -0.465, respectively). This indicated the feasibility of genetic analysis of feeding behaviour factors of different pig species. For the Landrace pigs, we revealed moderate correlations between the average daily gain and the time spent at the feeding station (r(g) = 0.452) and the average daily feed consumption (r(g) = 0.589), while a strong phenotypic correlation was established with the second indicator – 0.810. We established that the heritability coefficients of pigs’ feeding behaviour indicators varied from 0.116 to 0.486 for the Landrace breed and from 0.168 to 0.494 for the Duroc breed. This allowed us to conclude that the genetic architecture of traits depends on a set of factors that affect their value.
Keywords: feeding behaviour; average daily gain; mixed model equation; genetic and phenotypic correlations; Landrace breed; Duroc breed; daily time spent at the feeding station; average daily feed consumption; number of feed station visits per day; average feed consumption per visit; feed consumption rate; average visit duration.
Author Details: A. A. Belous, junior research fellow (e-mail: Этот адрес электронной почты защищён от спам-ботов. У вас должен быть включен JavaScript для просмотра.); E. A. Trebunskih, post graduate student.
For citation: Belous AA, Trebunskih EA. [Comparative study of feeding behaviour of Landrace and Duroc pigs] Dostizheniya nauki i tekhniki APK. 2021;35(10):61-5. Russian. doi: 10.53859/02352451_2021_35_10_61.