Body length and its genetic relationships with production and reproduction traits in pigs

Abstract

Body length in pigs has been reported to be heritable with heritability estimates ranging from 0.12 to 0.62 (Kim et al., 1996; Cho et al., 1998; Johnson and Nugent, 2003; Hofer, 2004). Body length is directly associated with carcass length. Measuring body length is simple and not costly. Compared to reproduction traits body length can be measured on younger animals and from both sexes. Considering these characteristics, body length could be used as one of the selection criteria to improve production and reproduction traits in pigs. However, studies on genetic relationships between body length and other production and reproduction traits have not been found in the literature. The aim of this study was to estimate genetic correlations of body length with production and reproduction traits.