10
The Up and Down of Pietrain A breed dependend of market demands
11/7/2012 Slide 2
The early days…
→Breed founded in 1919/20 in the village Pietrain (Belgium), by crossing french, british and wild living pigs “the pig with four hams”
→Maintained by hobby breeders for 30 years
→First breeders association in Belgium in 1950 (~ 1.600 pigs)
Winning Pietrain Pigs 1958
Pietrain Conquers Germany!
Year Number of breeding animals*
Ratio of total breeding animals
1965 267 0,4
1970 1.204 3,0
1978 2.809 6,0
1981 6.418 12,8
1986 10.426 25,1
1990 11.697 34,7
1995 11.650 20,1
2000 10.749 ~20
2010 4.002 ~20
11/7/2012 Slide 3
*: Animals registered by breeding organisations
Why?
Pigmeat 1960 Pigmeat 2012
11/7/2012 Slide 4
Increasing demand for meat
Decreasing demand for fat
Pietrain in Hybrid Pig breeding programs
11/7/2012 Slide 5
Large White Landrace
Pietrain F1-Sows
Fattening Pigs
Problems with stress resistance
→Correlated with meat content
→ „PSE-Meat“ for pale, soft, exsudative
→Public awareness Animal Welfare
→Breeding for stress resistance
11/7/2012 Slide 6
Breeding for stress resistance →Halothane test
20k-piglets were aneastethized with halothane gas spasm reaction – stress susceptible no reaction – stress resistant
→MHS gene test (Ryanodine receptor) PP – stress susceptible NN – stress resistant NP – heterozygote
→PP genotypes were almost eradicated
11/7/2012 Slide 7
Year
Breeding animals, % AI Boars %
female Male male
2003 38 28 31
2006 7 10 8
2012 3 3 3
Problem solved? – public discussion
Animal Welfare Organisation →Stress susceptibility is a
severe problem and causes pain, suffering and damages to all pigs!
Breeding industry →Stress susceptibility is no
problem because the gene is almost eradicated.
11/7/2012 Slide 8
Whom do people believe?
Future Challenges
→Breeding against boar taint to avoid castration of piglets
→Number of piglets and teats (not so strong for Pietrain)
→Access to genetics more and more breeding companies
11/7/2012 Slide 9
Thankyou for your attention
11/7/2012 Slide 10
Special thanks to:
