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Industry Partners
Prairie Swine Centre is an affiliate of the University of Saskatchewan
Prairie Swine Centre is grateful for the assistance of the George Morris Centre in developing the economics portion of Pork Insight.
Financial support for the Enterprise Model Project and Pork Insight has been provided by:
Gilt Acclimation Project -Banff 2016
Posted in: Pork Insight Articles, Production by admin on May 5, 2017
Genetic variations in animals can produce differing levels of resistance to infectious diseases. This study followed over 3,000 gilts as they transitioned from high health multiplier farms to cooperating commercial farms where the females would encounter a number of natural disease loads. The early data from the outbreak farms led to exciting results. It was shown that two regions of the swine genome on chromosome seven explained 40 per cent of the genetic variation with the PRRS S/P ratios. Not only were those ratios inheritable, but they correlated strongly with traits such as number of mummies and number born alive while under a PRRS challenge.
Altogether, the results indicate that response to PRRS in gilts and sows is heritable and that immune and reproductive performance might be improved using genomics.
Gilt Acclimation Project -Banff 2016