SEARCH
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:
Genomics and Swine Health -Banff 2016
Posted in: Pork Insight Articles, Production, Uncategorized by admin on May 5, 2017
The Genome Canada project was launched in 2010. Its goal was to identify genetic markers associated with animals performing well when exposed to disease in order to improve swine health.
Researchers aimed to provide new diagnostic tools for selecting pigs that are genetically less susceptible to PRRS and PCVAD. They found several phenotypic factors and immune response mediators associated with viremia, weight gain and fetal outcomes, as well as litter size and reproductive performance. Consistent results within disease models were found, however the results appear to be disease specific.
Certain pigs were found to be disease resilient, being able to maintain their performance despite being infected. How pigs react to disease can be identified in a blood sample and used to select for resilience. The next generation of studies will seek to establish whether developing more resilient pigs is possible.
Genomics and Swine Health -Banff 2016