Pig Development Centre

Research News

Growth rate and meat quality

Latest news

Pigs are being identified and growth from weaning to slaughter recorded on an ongoing basis. This will continue until the target number of samples has been met. With the exception of pigs exhibiting a severe growth check due to poor health, the majority of animals on this trial have been slaughtered and evaluated by Autofom. Loins have been sent to the Pork Chain Unit at Bristol for meat quality analysis.

Delays in collecting data from health challenged pigs were an inevitable and expected problem. However, the very high mortality rate among identified sick pigs has delayed completion of this study more than anticipated.

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Results coming soon

Defining the benefits of new genotypes

Latest news

All sows have been bred to the chosen boars and the weaner stage of this project is now complete. For the weaner work, performance data from 90 litters has been recorded and loins from 20 boars and 20 gilts of each breed have been sent to the Bristol Pork Chain Unit for meat quality assessment.

The aim of the grower (7-12 weeks) and finisher (12 weeks – 100 kg) studies, which are part-way through, is to investigate the response of each of the crossbreeds to lysine concentration in the diet.

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Results coming soon