A Phenotypic and Genetic Analysis of Still Born Piglets

Abstract

Still born piglets (SB) are a major economic cost to the pig industry. Not only is there a cost associated with the loss of a potential finished pig, there are also costs associated with the gestation of that animal to the sow. These are opportunity costs to the other piglets in the litter, such as a higher chance of mortality and sub-optimal growth rates (Boulot et al., 2008). Bunter (2009) suggested that heritability (h²) estimates for preweaning mortality may have increased over time. A similar composition of h² estimates was not available for SB. The aim of this study was to derive phenotypic trends and obtain variance components for SB.