Potential Quantitative Genetic Indicators of Pig Temperament

Abstract

Two temperament traits, the standard deviation of 50 weights recorded in a 20 second period (SDWT) and flight time over a 1m distance on exiting the weigh scales (FT), were recorded in a commercial nucleus population. After editing, 4,879 SDWT records (mean=0.85 kg, CV=50%) and 3,567 FT records (mean=2.03 seconds, CV=63%) remained. Individual animal model residual maximum likelihood analyses were performed to ascertain the variance parameters of these traits. Both SDWT and FT were heritable ('h'² = 0.10 and 'h'² = 0.20, respectively), and there was a significant common litter of birth effect for SDWT ('c'² = 0.04).