Sel’skokhozyaistvennaya Biologiya [Agricultural Biology], 2018, Vol. 53, ¹ 4, p. 712-722.
(how to cite this article)

doi: 10.15389/agrobiology.2018.4.712eng

UDC 636.4:636.082:575.1

Acknowledgements:
The equipment of the Sharing Center for Farm Animal Bioresources and Bioengineering (FSC for Animal Husbandry) was used.
Supported financially by Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation (the project unique identifier RFMEFI60417X0182)

 

STUDY OF GENETIC AND ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS,
CHARACTERIZING THE FEED EFFICIENCY IN DUROC PIGS

A.A. Belous, A.A. Sermyagin, O.V. Kostyunina, E.A. Trebunskikh,
N.A. Zinovieva

Ernst Federal Science Center for Animal Husbandry,Federal Agency of Scientific Organizations, 60, pos. Dubrovitsy, Podolsk District, Moscow Province, 142132 Russia, e-mail belousa663@gmail.com, alex_sermyagin85@mail.ru, kostolan@yandex.ru, terramio7@mail.ru, n_zinovieva@mail.ru (✉ corresponding author)

ORCID:
Belous A.A. orcid.org/0000-0001-7533-4281
Sermyagin A.A. orcid.org/0000-0002-1799-6014
Kostyunina O.V. orcid.org/0000-0001-8206-3221
Trebunskikh E.A. orcid.org/0000-0002-5208-3376
Zinovieva N.A. orcid.org/0000-0003-4017-6863
The authors declare no conflict of interests

Received April 28, 2018

 

Feed efficiency is the most important economically relevant factor in swine breeding. The values of daily feed intake (DFI) and feed conversion rate (the ratio of feed intake to the body weight gain for a certain period, FCR). A group of factors that can affect the feed efficiency is the feeding behavior. In this regard, it is relevant to study the genetic and environmental variability of a number of factors that affect the growth, feed efficiency, and ethological features of feed intake in Duroc pigs based on the automatic feeding station data records. The aim of our study was to select at test population the factors which can be associated with feed efficiency, including following traits: body weight (BW, kg), average daily gain (ADG, g), daily feed intake (DFI, g/day), time spent at the feeding station (TPD, min), the number of visits to the feeding station per day (NVD, times), feed intake per visit (FPV, g), feed rate (FR, g/min), and the time at the feeding station per visit (TPV, min). Three different approaches were applied to calculate the feed conversion rate: (1) the ratio of feed intake to the body weight gain for the whole feeding period (FCR1); (2) the ratio of feed intake to the body weight for 10-day feeding periods (FCR2); (3) the calculation based on daily data records taking into account the daily fluctuations of BW and DFI (FCR3).The values of average daily gain (ADG1, ADG2, ADG3) were calculated according to FCR1, FCR2, and FCR3, respectively. The initial dataset of individual records included 99867 observations of each trait for 71 boars. After the evaluation of data for normal distribution and presence of at least 60 % of records, 60 boars were selected for the further analysis. The final dataset included 4138 daily values for every boar. The decomposition of phenotypic variability was performed using the analysis of variance without interaction. The analysis of variance parameters of genetic and environmental types and the evaluation of relationships between variables were based on REML method with a multi-variable model. Boars accessed the feeding station at the age of 74.2±1.0 days (Cv = 10.6 %), the age at the body weight of 100 kg was 149.9±1.0 days (Cv = 5.0 %). Average values of FCR differed depending on the calculation approach and ranged from 2.52 kg/kg to 3.08 kg/kg. The higher variability was observed for FCR2 and FCR3 — 23.2 % and 19.2 %, respectively. The variability of feeding behavior (TPD, NVD, FPV, FR, and TPV) was 13.7 %, 27.4 %, 21.6 %, 17.7 %, and 21.8 %, respectively. The genetic ratio of parent boar was maximal for the following factors: FCR2 (11.7 %), FCR3 (15.4 %), TPD (28.2 %), and NVD (30.8 %). The heritability coefficient of FCR3 was low (0.019), while the related variables of feeding behavior and body weight revealed more reliable results: h2 = 0.134-0.368 and h2 = 0.744. The higher level of genetic correlations were observed between FCR3 and TPD (0.585), FR (-0.368), FPV (-0.274), and NVD (0.368). ADG2 and FCR2 were characterized by negative correlation. Our results can be used in the developing the breeding programs based on genetic and genomic evaluation of pigs for a number of traits. 
 

Keywords: pig, Duroc breed, feed conversion, feeding behavior, body weight, average daily gain, heritability, variability.

 

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