New Breeding Goal will Improve the Nutrient Utilisation into Valuable Pork

Saved Feed

Selection for Saved feed will increase the genetic progress for a more efficient pork production. Saved feed is described as gram of feed saved per day that is not used for gain of valuable lean meat and maintenance.

Saved feed looks into the feed intake consumption and defines how much of the diet is allocated to weight gain during growing and finishing period, fat content, and maintenance requirements. Therefore, Saved feed will be independent of growth and carcass quality traits, therefore, a faster response in genetic development is expected to be made on net feed efficiency.

Economic and Environmental Sustainability

The breeding goal, Saved feed, will contribute to a more sustainable pig production in both economic and environmental areas. Feed constitutes for around 60 % of the total costs to pig production and thereby a high feed efficiency is essential to increased profit of pig producers.

With Saved feed, which will increase the genetic progress further, it is expected that the pig producers can decrease their costs to feed. This will at the same time have a positive impact on the environment as it will decrease the amount of land needed to grow feed for the same number of animals.

Additionally, it is expected that the new breeding goal will decrease the pollution of green house gases and nutrients. Thereby the involvement of the breeding goal, Saved feed, in the breeding program will contribute to a more sustainable pig production.

The new breeding program will be launched in april where the new breeding goals will also take effect.