Understand pig breeds, choose wisely

There is a lot of confusion and misinformation about pig breeds in Uganda, some is deliberate and the other is out of ignorance.

Some producers of course shield or give wrong information for purposes of business. Others innocently give wrong information to buyers about breeds they keep because that is what the source of their stock told them. 

There are some facts you need to understand about Uganda and other East African countries' pig genetics. 

- Due to a lack of a national livestock identification and record keeping system, there is continuous unintended inbreeding of the national pig herd. The lack of an identification system makes animal tracking almost impossible.

-There is no farmer owning grandparent maternal breed lines (Landrace and Yorkshire) for commercial purposes. The few available are used for private purposes.

-There is unplanned crossbreeding leading to dilution of hybrid vigor of improved genetics. This is because farmers import females/gilts without boars and strategies for producing replacement stock.

- The imported first Generation gilts are not put to their intended use hence their inefficient utilization.

This was fine before because majority pig producers were smallholding, spending less or nothing at all on pig nutrition. However, the pig sector is shifting from traditional to commercialized operations and the change is rapidly happening. The shift is mainly led by foreign investors and their success isn’t a secret because they have access to correct information about the 4 pillars on which a successful pig production business must be built and these includes:

- Genetics 

-Feeds & Feeding

-Management 

- Environment 

Some people setting up commercial pig farming operations end up failing due to a limited access to right information and this leads to:

- Poor Choice of genetics for commercial operations.

-  Lack of knowledge on management of commercial operations 

- Lack of skills in management of feeding costs on commercial operations 

- Limited marketing strategies for premium pork products 

PIG BREEDS 

Pig breeds are composed of maternal and paternal lines. These may differ in performance depending on breeder and market requirements. However, the main maternal breeds used by most commercial pig breeders globally includes both Landrace and Yorkshire (aka, Large White). The main paternal breeds include Duroc, Pietrain and Hampshire. Pietrain is rarely used independently because of its poor Average Daily Gain (ADG) and the too much leanness traits. It is usually a component of many rotaterminals and three way cross commercial boars.

So breeders crossbreed Landrace (LL) with Yorkshire (YY) to produce First Fillial Generation (F1) hybird gilts (LY/YL) that are sold as parent stock to pig farmers intending to produce pigs for slaughter. The first generation gilts are 50% the genetic composition of both Landrace and Yorkshire. The mothering abilities of these hybrids is impeccable! The hybrids (LY/YL) are then crossed again with a preferred commercial boar and their offspring grown for slaughter. The genetic composition of their offspring is 25% Landrace/Yorkshire and 50% the genetics of the commercial boar used. 

However in a market like ours where access to quality genetics is still limited, these are also used by small and medium pig farm businesses for reproduction. Using such breedlines on a commercial scale may lead to losses due to reduced mothering abilities. It even becomes worse when their offspring is reproduced! 

The Pork producer will need a commercial/terminal boar semen know for quality pork characteristics, high muscling abilities, low fat etc. 

Usually, Duroc (DD), a cross of Duroc and Pietrain (DP) or  Hampshire (HH) are used. For our discussion, lets choose Duroc (DD) in this case. The pigs produced for slaughter can be represented as (LYD/YLD/DYL). All these are supposed to be fattened and slaughtered and the cycle continues. This is referred to as terminal crossing. You achieve 100% heterosis/hybrid vigor. Rebreeding such pigs reduces hybrid vigor.

The above is the easiest way a Pork producer can be sure of good farm results based on genetics. 

Christopher Mulindwa is a pig farmer, manager and consultant